Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

COVENTRY CATHEDRAL BILL

As amended, considered.

Standing Order 205 (Notice of Third Reading) suspended; Bill to be read the Third time forthwith.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

DUDLEY EXTENSION BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL

Mining Subsidence

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power (1) if he will consider the special circumstances caused by mining subsidence in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, the financial difficulties and the effect on roads, drains, sewerage works and public buildings; and if he will make a substantial grant to cover the damage while consideration is given to the problems created by mining subsidence;
(2) the financial consequences which have fallen on local authorities where mining subsidence has taken place; how many county boroughs are wholly affected by mining subsidence; and what national financial assistance it is intended to grant to county boroughs who are affected.

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he is aware of the continuing damage and distress caused by mining subsidence in and around Newcastle-under-Lyme; and what action he is taking to provide a more comprehensive scheme of compensation for those

affected and to ensure that the National Coal Board has a sufficient allocation of capital resources to devote to the prevention of subsidence in the future.

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): I am advised there are some 17 county boroughs affected by mining subsidence which is prevalent in both the boroughs mentioned by the hon. Members. I cannot, however, exceed the financial powers conferred on me by the Act passed by the last Government in 1950.

Mr. Ellis Smith: The three Questions raise two issues, short-term and long-term. Will the Minister treat the short-term issue as a matter of extreme urgency? Is he aware that in Fenton the sewer has completely collapsed and that it is overflowing into the roads and into the homes of the miners? Does he not agree that a very serious situation could arise from that? Will he consult the Minister of Health at once with a view to dealing with the matter?

Mr. Lloyd: I am always ready carefully to consider any specific cases in which I might be able to help in any way. Perhaps the hon. Member will let me have details.

Mr. Swingler: Can the right hon. Gentleman now say when he hopes to act further on the recommendations of the 1949 Report? Is he not aware that the Act of 1950 was only a first instalment in dealing with this problem? Can he now tell us what action he proposes to take to implement the recommendations to cover the problem?

Mr. Lloyd: The position of this Government in this matter is the same as that of the last Administration.

Dr. Stross: Will the Minister advise us about this? If there should be a major outbreak of pestilence as a result of sewage contaminating our people's homes, whom shall we blame and to whom shall we go for redress?

Mr. Lloyd: Perhaps the hon. Member will give me any details which might portend such a happening?

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Woodburn.

Mr. Ellis Smith: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My point of order is based on the fact that there are on the Order


Paper three Questions, two in my name. I put only one supplementary question concerning an urgent short-term matter dealt with in the first Question. Might I be allowed a supplementary question dealing with the second Question?

Mr. Speaker: There have been three supplementary questions to these Questions already. Mr. Woodburn.

Fuel Efficiency

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware that there is considerable unused capacity in the Stirlingshire and Falkirk foundry industry for the production of fuel-saving grates, stoves and other space-heating appliances; and whether he will arrange to accelerate the campaign, urging that a programme of replacing wasteful heating arrangements in the offices of central and local government and in households throughout the country.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Yes, Sir, and I said last week that the campaign is being constantly extended.

Mr. Woodburn: Will the right hon. Gentleman get in touch with the Ministers in both countries who deal with housing and see if they can speed up the campaign to make use of these fuel-saving appliances? Does he realise that this is wasted capacity in a subject in which he must have a great interest?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir, we are getting in touch with the Scottish authorities, and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government for England and Wales are sending out a circular to local authorities.

Mr. Hoy: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power why he proposes to set up a professional committee to supersede the present Scottish Fuel Efficiency Committee; what will be the cost; and what work it will do that at present is not being done by the Scottish Fuel Efficiency Committee.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: The hon. Member is misinformed and I would ask him to consult the Pilkington Report, of which I have placed copies in the Library, and the statement I made in the House on 22nd June.

Mr. Hoy: Arising from that reply, can we then take it that the Minister has no intention of replacing the present Fuel

Efficiency Committee in Scotland by another Committee?

Mr. Lloyd: I think the hon. Gentleman has confused the proposal with regard to the Fuel Efficiency Organisation with the question of advisory committees, which is quite separate.

Mr. Hoy: On the contrary, is it not a fact that the Scottish Fuel Efficiency Committee, of which the chairman is Sir Patrick Dollan, was notified that there would be changes? Is the Minister now saying that it is not the intention of his Department to make any changes in the Committee?

Mr. Lloyd: There will, of course, be changes in the organisation for fuel efficiency carried out by the Ministry and there is a proposal for a new non-profit making company, but the position of the advisory councils and committees is quite separate and I have not made a decision on that matter.

Mr. Woodburn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of some apprehension in Scotland that a new body is to be established which will cost a lot of money but will not do anything more than is being done by the advisory committee, which is also an executive committee?

Mr. Lloyd: The duties of the committee are advisory and not executive, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will allay those anxieties.

Mr. Palmer: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if, in his financial arrangement for the establishment of the independent Fuel Efficiency Advisory Company recommended by the Pilkington Committee, he will make provision for a levy on privately owned industry to supplement the sums proposed to be found by the publicly owned coal, electricity and gas industries.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I have no powers to impose a levy and I prefer to rely on fees and voluntary contributions.

Mr. Palmer: Is it not most undesirable from the point of view of good public policy that publicly owned industries should be used to subsidise privately owned industries in this way, since the whole of industry generally is interested in fuel efficiency, and did not the Ridley


Report suggest that a levy should be used as the method of financing an organisation of this kind?

Mr. Lloyd: That suggestion has been heard, but, of course, it is in the interests of the nationalised industries to secure some decrease of demand since none of them at the present is in a position to guarantee full supplies during the whole year.

Mr. A. J. Irvine: Does not that answer by the Minister reveal an extraordinary state of affairs? Is it the Minister's argument that the fact that it is administratively comparatively easy to collect funds out of publicly owned industries is to be regarded as justifying this subsidising of private industry from public funds?

Mr. Lloyd: No, Sir.

Mr. Noel-Baker: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power why he disregarded the recommendation of the Ridley Committee that his Department's fuel efficiency service should be maintained and should continue to give advice to fuel efficiency in industry.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I wish to avoid wasteful duplication between the Ministry's services and those of the new Fuel Efficiency Company.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Did not the Ridley Report make it quite clear that there would, firstly, be no wasteful duplication and, secondly, that it would be extremely rash to abolish this service which is comparatively new and which has done such splendid work in the last few years?

Mr. Lloyd: I agree that it has done good work, but we have decided that the best vehicle for this is the new fuel efficiency non-profit-making company.

Stocks (Imports from Western Europe)

Mr. Fenner Brockway: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he is aware that stocks of coal in Slough are at the lowest level for many years; and what steps he proposes to take to ensure that supplies are adequate during the winter months.

Major Anstruther-Gray: asked the Minister Fuel and Power if he will give

figures to show the present position of household coal stocks in Scotland compared with last year.

Mr. Awbery: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what quantity of domestic coal is in stock in Bristol; how this compares with last year; and what steps he is taking to ensure an adequate supply to householders during the coming winter.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware of the present unsatisfactory housecoal situation in the Rossendale Valley, where stocks are non-existent and where merchants were unable to deliver more than 7 cwt. in the 13 weeks period; and what steps he is taking to increase supplies.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: As I told the House last week, stocks of large coal, particularly for domestic purposes, are inadequate. The Chairman of the National Coal Board has warned the Miners' Conference of the extra efforts required to supplement the coal production drive. The Government have reviewed the position and decided that if we are to avoid a serious risk of household coal going short next winter further steps must be taken over and above those announced last week. We must insure against this risk and deal with the stock position now.
One course would be to cut our exports of large coal, but this course the Government are not prepared to adopt. These exports are not only valuable in themselves, but they also carry with them exports of still greater quantities of small coal which is fairly plentiful. Moreover, to cut our exports of coal would make it more difficult for us to come back into the market later with a consequent further loss of earnings of foreign exchange.
In these circumstances, the Government have decided that the right course is to maintain our exports and at the same time increase supplies of large coal by some importation. Serious though this course is, they have therefore authorised the National Coal Board to import large coal from Western Europe where there is some surplus.

Mr. Brockway: In relation to the position in Slough, with which my Question deals, is the right hon. Gentleman aware


that the Co-operative Society generally at this time of the year have 1,400 tons of coal in stock but that this year they have no stocks at all, that allocations generally to the merchants have been cut down 20 per cent., and that people are not able to take supplies in the summer months to cover them in the winter period? If this is the case with other places as well as Slough, will the right hon. Gentleman take the most urgent steps in this matter?

Mr. Lloyd: I have examined the position at Slough and it appears that rather less coal proportionately has gone there than to other places. Steps are being taken to correct that.

Major Anstruther-Gray: While it is bad enough to have to import coal, is not this action taking steps in time instead of waiting to the last minute and, therefore, to be welcomed?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Would it not be more to the national advantage if the Government spent a little money in encouraging efficient solid fuel appliances in the home instead of importing coal from abroad? After all, that is a very costly expedient.

Mr. Lloyd: I think the right hon. Gentleman is the last person who ought to present those two alternatives as being in conflict. It is desirable to encourage fuel efficiency, but it is also desirable to face up to a difficult prospect now in regard to domestic coal and not wait until the winter.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Yes, Sir, and so I always did, including imports when required for industrial needs. But what have the Government done to encourage efficient solid fuel appliances in the home? The Minister last week gave us figures of what we did and the results, but what has he done?

Mr. Lloyd: We have constantly extended the campaign of the Coal Utilisation Council, and if the question is to be argued as to when imports of coal took place, the importation of the Labour Government was announced on 20th November.

Mr. Nabarro: First, is it not a fact that this transaction does not involve any loss of hard currency and is essentially a soft currency transaction and, secondly, that it will not dislocate the North Atlantic freight markets? Is it not really an

exchange of small coals for very scarce large coals?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir, this is a soft currency transaction. It is true, of course, that by maintaining our traditional markets and particularly selling our small coal, which is in reasonable supply, and getting some large coal from the same countries, it will, in fact, be a case of exchange with the Continent of Europe.

Mr. Robens: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how much coal he proposes to import and from what countries he proposes to import it?

Mr. Lloyd: No, Sir. I should like to be excused from stating that, so as to place the National Coal Board in the best possible position for carrying out this transaction.

Prices and Costs

Mr. Hamilton: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what consultations he has had with the National Coal Board, with a view to selling coal below actual costs of production to retirement pensioners and others with low fixed incomes.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: None, Sir.

Mr. Hamilton: Has any consideration at all been given in the past to this point? Is the Minister aware that fuel costs constitute a very important part of the cost of living of old age pensioners and others on low fixed incomes, and in view of the fact that the National Coal Board is selling large quantities of coal below cost to industries which are, in the main, prosperous, will he not consider this question?

Mr. Lloyd: We have considered it, but under the Act nationalising the coal mines passed by the party opposite the Coal Board is specifically debarred from giving a preference to particular types of consumers.

Mr. Hamilton: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power how much coal was sold in 1952 below costs of production to domestic and industrial consumers, respectively; and how much was sold to each of these consumer categories above costs of production.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I am advised by the National Coal Board that the information is not available.

Mr. Hamilton: Does the Minister not agree that the Coal Board is, in fact, selling coal below the cost of production to industries, including the steel industry, which is now to be denationalised and, therefore, presumably is to be subsidised by the National Coal Board? If he says that it is contrary to the nationalisation Act to give preference to categories of consumers, how is it that the National Coal Board can, in fact, provide coal below the cost of production to these other industries?

Mr. Lloyd: The National Coal Board has not changed its policy since the Labour Government were in power.

Mr. Hamilton: In view of the very unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Mr. Boardman: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether, in view of the high and rising price of coal, he will set up an inquiry to examine means of reducing the difference between pithead and consumer prices.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power why the retail price of coal is more than double the pithead price; and what steps he will take to reduce excessive additions to the pithead price.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: The difference between pithead prices and the prices charged to consumers consists of only two parts: transport costs and distributors' margins. With regard to the first, the railways are nationalised, and with regard to the second, the margins have been controlled by Government since the beginning of the war.

Mr. Boardman: Is the Minister aware that in the coming winter many people, including pensioners and the like, will find these high prices extremely difficult, and does he not think that an inquiry would be worth while, apart from the question of traders' margins, into the whole question of the handling of coal, particularly the antiquated methods of handling the coal at the wharves?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is suggesting an inquiry into the railways?

Mr. Boardman: I am suggesting an inquiry into the whole of the costs between the pithead and the consumers.

Mr. Lloyd: The only other part is the question of the margins. There has been no alteration of policy on this since right hon. Gentlemen opposite were in office.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the Minister aware that, after the coal has been delivered to London, London coal merchants get £1 15s. 9d. a ton for delivery to the household consumer, which is about six times as much as the miner gets for cutting it from the coal face? Is there any sense or justice in this wide distributors' margin?

Mr. Lloyd: The hon. and gallant Gentleman must remember that from that have to be met the wages of the men who do the work.

Mr. Ellis Smith: While welcoming the suggestion made in the Question, may I ask whether the Minister does not agree that the time has arrived when the nation should accept the responsibility of the consequences of taking the coal from where the miners get it, and will he consult the Chancellor as soon as possible in order that the people living in the areas can be recompensed for what they suffer from mining subsidence?

Briquette Production

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the capacity in tons per annum, based on normal working hours, and present degree of occupation of the coal briquetting plants of the United Kingdom, excluding anthracite; what part of this capacity is owned by the nationalised undertakings and what part is privately owned; and, in view of the increased and increasing supplies of small coals, slurries and dust normally unsuitable for domestic use and the current surplus of this material, what steps he proposes to take to enlarge and accelerate briquette production, with a view to alleviating shortage of domestic coal supplies.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: About 2 million tons, of which some three-quarters is owned by the National Coal Board. The plants are only running at half capacity because demand is slack; and I am in consultation with the National Coal Board on the whole question.

Mr. Nabarro: Is not this one of the answers in the forthcoming year to this continuing and aggravating shortage of


large house coal? Cannot we increase these briquette appliances in order that fairly large quantities of small coals, slurries and dust are converted into briquettes which make first-class house solid fuel?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, I think my hon. Friend is correct generally, and we ought to bear in mind as potential customers of briquettes not only householders but also the railways.

Coke

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the amount of domestic coke available per annum to householders, respectively, in the North and South of England, in addition to the domestic coal ration of 50 cwts. per annum in the north and 34 cwts. per annum in the South; whether supplies of coke next winter are estimated to be adequate for the domestic market; why coke cannot be derationed; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Yes, Sir; 3 tons of Group II fuel, which includes coke, in the current coal year, but not more than 30 cwt. in each six months. We expect there will be enough coke to meet the resulting demand but not enough to justify derationing. I agree however with my hon. Friend that coke can help very much with our problems, especially the shortage of large coal, and I think it would be useful if householders could get expert advice on the right equipment and grades of coke needed. I am glad to say that the Gas Council and the merchants are arranging for a marketing scheme which includes this service and, after consulting the Domestic Coal Consumers' Council, I have agreed in principle to this scheme which will come into operation in the south of England this autumn.

Mr. Nabarro: While appreciating that my right hon. Friend's judgment that he cannot deration coke at this moment may indeed be sound, though I differ from him, is he prepared to give early consideration, if he cannot deration coke, at least to making an announcement that he can increase the ration to householders to make good the shortage of large coal?

Mr. Lloyd: I will take note of the suggestion of my hon. Friend.

Sir W. Smithers: Does not the Minister realise that the real answer to all these

questions was given by St. Paul when he said:
For even when we were with you this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

Opencast Site, Yorkshire (Accident)

Mr. A. Roberts: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power, in view of two brothers being drowned in a flooded and abandoned opencast coal site, of which he is aware, on 2nd July, if he will take immediate steps to have the site restored.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: This was a private venture and I am afraid I have no powers in respect of restoration.

Mr. Roberts: Is the Minister aware of the high feeling prevalent throughout Yorkshire, and is he prepared to call a conference of local government, town planning, the Ministry of Fuel and Power, the planning authorities and the land owners?

Mr. Lloyd: I am advised that the authority which has some powers in respect of this matter is the local authority.

Mr. Roberts: Is the Minister aware that two small boys out of one family lost their lives just over a week ago, and that in our district not only do we suffer from mining subsidence but we look like having a permanent structure of ugliness, and would not the Minister be resolute about this question?

Mr. Lloyd: If the hon. Gentleman will give me further particulars, I will see if I can help.

Oral Answers to Questions — GENERATING STATIONS (CAPACITY)

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the aggregate installed capacity of British Electricity Authority's generating stations at 30th June, 1953, compared, respectively, with one year and two years earlier; what further capacity is to be installed before 31st March, 1954; and, in view of the accentuated peak-load demand anticipated next winter, arising from increased industrial production and greater use of electricity for domestic space and water heating, due to the shortage of house coal, what steps he is taking to avoid


interruption of production caused by low frequencies, load-shedding, power-cuts and other generating ills.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: The installed capacity was 14,760 megawatts in 1951, 16,020 in 1952 and 17,490 this year. The programme up to 31st March next is about a further 1,300 to 1,400 megawatts. The increase in plant this year is expected to be considerably more than the increase in demand from all causes.

Mr. Nabarro: Is not the shortage of house coal going to lead to a rush to use electric fires, particularly at peak hours, which may gravely impair industrial efficiency and lead to power cuts, low frequencies and so on? What is my right hon. Friend doing about reverting to the excellent arrangements made in 1951 for a load spread of at least 20 per cent. of industry in the forthcoming winter?

Mr. Lloyd: I can assure my hon. Friend that we are considering that carefully.

Mr. Noel-Baker: May we press the Minister? Is he supporting the Minister of Labour strongly in proposals for a greater load spread, which is required both for the reasons given by the hon. Gentleman opposite, and for the greater efficiency of British industry?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, but as the right hon. Gentleman knows this is just the time of year when this matter is about to be considered by the committee which goes into it.

Mr. Noel-Baker: That is why we would like to know that the Minister is pressing the right policy.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOFTWOOD (CONSUMPTION LICENSING)

Mr. Erroll: asked the Minister of Materials what estimate he has made of the savings in foreign currency used in purchasing substitute materials which would result from freeing the importation of softwood.

The Minister of Materials (Sir Arthur Salter): The savings referred to by my hon. Friend of which I am not yet able to give a close estimate, are only one of a number of factors which must be taken

into account in attempting to assess the net effect of removing softwood licensing upon our finances. These factors are all now being considered in the light of the probable increase in softwood consumption which is estimated to be about 230,000 standards a year.

Mr. Erroll: Can the Minister say when the report of the Committee on consumption and licensing of softwood will be available, as that would assist me in understanding his answer to my Question?

Sir A. Salter: From the study just completed by officials and representatives of the Timber Development Association, which was not constituted as a formal committee, it appears that if consumption licensing were removed, the total consumption of softwood, as I have just said, would be likely to rise by some 230,000 standards a year, but the full rise would not take place until the third year after the removal of licensing.

Mr. Erroll: Will the report be published?

Sir A. Salter: No, it was not a formal committee and the report was not in a form suitable for publication. They have given us the results of their study, from which I have given the main conclusions to my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — COUNTY COURTS INVESTMENT ACCOUNTS (INTEREST)

Mr. Elwyn Jones: asked the Attorney-General whether he is aware that widows and infants and others, for whose benefit sums of money awarded by way of damages, etc., are paid into the county court, receive less interest on those sums than is paid when such sums are paid into the High Court; and whether he will cause the necessary steps to be taken to end this differentiation.

The Attorney-General (Sir Lionel Heald): I am aware that there is a difference between the practice of the High Court and that of the county court in the investment of funds paid into court. There are good grounds for this, but I understand that my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor, with the concurrence of the Treasury, proposes to reintroduce in


the county court an investment account in which suitors' money, if placed there by order of the court, will bear interest at 3 per cent.

Mr. Elwyn Jones: While thanking the Attorney-General for that most helpful answer, may I ask first whether this ruling will be made to apply to payments into court which have been paid in already, that is to say, will be made retrospective in effect? Secondly, may I ask him how the new rate of interest of 3 per cent. compares with the return on investments in Government securities of moneys paid into the High Court?

The Attorney-General: With regard to the first point, I will certainly see that it is taken up, though I would not like to encourage the hon. and learned Gentleman to expect very much result. As regards the second, I understand that in the High Court the current average rate of return is somewhere between 3 and 4 per cent., probably nearer 3 than 4.

Mr. Elwyn Jones: May I again ask the Attorney-General why there should be this differentiation? The county court is the poor man's court and there has to be this limitation there of 3 per cent., whereas money paid into the High Court has apparently to yield a higher interest. I do not want to embarrass the Attorney-General by asking him to explain technicalities at this stage, but will he look into this again and end this differentiation which causes hardship to poor litigants?

The Attorney-General: I will certainly see that the matter is looked into.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRISONERS (PRESS ARTICLES)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Attorney-General if he will introduce legislation for the purpose of preventing the publication in newspapers of articles written by persons in prison charged with murder.

The Attorney-General: I cannot give any undertaking as to legislation, but I can assure the hon. Member that this question is being carefully examined, with particular relation to the provision of funds for the defence of the person charged. I will gladly consider any further information or representations

from hon. Members in this connection, but I am not at present in a position to make any statement.

Mr. Hughes: Is there not a possibility that the enormous sensational publicity given to the Christie memoirs might conceivably lead to other morbid-minded people imitating the crime? If unsavoury details about divorce cases are expunged from the newspapers, with an improvement in the Press, why should there not be legislation to prohibit this enormous publicity?

The Attorney-General: I do not think it would be right for me to make any comment on the matter in view of the fact that the whole subject is under consideration. We should bear in mind, however, that great care must be exercised before imposing any kind of Press censorship.

Mr. Woodburn: When looking into this question, will the hon. and learned Gentleman look into the much stricter conduct that is imposed by the courts in Scotland in regard to publicity that might affect judicial proceedings?

The Attorney-General: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me information of that kind and directing my attention to what goes on in these foreign lands.

Mr. Hollis: Is an offence committed when a body offering money for the defence in a criminal case attaches to that offer conditions as to the way in which the case shall be conducted?

The Attorney-General: It would be necessary to know exactly what those conditions were. In some cases I imagine that the answer would be "Yes," and in other cases it would be "No."

Mr. S. Silverman: When considering this question, will the hon. and learned Gentleman consider how far the evil might be minimised, or prevented altogether, if the Legal Aid and Advice Act were extended so as to cover the defence of poor persons in serious criminal cases? Will he consider how handicapped and embarrassed a poor person is in a capital case when, although his case may be presented in court quite adequately and efficiently by the generosity of counsel and others, the whole investigation on which that presentment must rest is handicapped by the absence of any facilities or funds?

The Attorney-General: I quite agree with that point of view. If there were to be any limitation placed upon the accused person to contribute to his defence, I think that the point raised by the hon. Member would certainly have to be borne in mind.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN MIGRATION (INTER-GOVERNMENTAL COMMITTEE)

Major Beamish: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has now received a report of the meeting of the inter-Governmental Committee for European Migration, which took place last month in Geneva; and what action Her Majesty's Government propose to take as a result of this report.

The Minister of State (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): Yes, Sir. A report of this meeting was taken into consideration by Her Majesty's Government when the question of joining the inter-Governmental Committee for European Migration was recently re-examined. For the reasons given by my hon. Friend in the Adjournment debate on 30th June, they have decided that for the present they could not undertake this commitment.

Major Beamish: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that until 18 months ago the contribution made by this country to refugee problems in Europe seemed to be outstandingly generous and constructive, but that since then, in the opinion of many people, largely through failure to join this organisation, our contribution has not been so generous or constructive?

Mr. Lloyd: I doubt whether the inference drawn by my hon. and gallant Friend in the latter part of his supplementary question is justified. I refer him to the words "for the present" in my answer.

Oral Answers to Questions — VISA ABOLITION AGREEMENTS

Mr. Gower: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs which European countries may only be visited by British citizens who obtain special permission or entry permits; which European countries require special visas; what countries can be visited on production of a British passport only; and what steps he is taking

to achieve reciprocal agreements which will permit British people and nationals of other countries to visit each other on presentation of passports only.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I will, with permission, circulate details in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Gower: While recognising that my Question may ask for a state of affairs which is idealist and may be unobtainable for some time, may I ask whether we as a country should not play a leading part in mooting this idea?

Mr. Lloyd: My hon. Friend will see when he studies the answer, which will be circulated, that a great deal has been done along these lines.

Following are the details:
British subjects holding United Kingdom passports require special permits for entry into the Soviet Zone of Austria, in which Vienna is an enclave, and the Eastern Zone of Germany, including the Soviet Sector of Berlin.
Visas are required for entry into Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Roumania, the Saar, the Soviet Union, Spain and Yugoslavia.
Visas are not required by holders of United Kingdom passports for the following countries:

Austria.
Liechtenstein.


Belgium.
Luxembourg.


Denmark.
Monaco.


France.
Netherlands.


Federal Republic of Germany.
Norway.



San Marino.


Greece.
Sweden.


Iceland.
Switzerland.


Italy.
Turkey.

Inquiries which have been made of the Portuguese and Spanish authorities indicate that those authorities are not at present prepared to conclude visa abolition agreements with us. No approaches to other European countries are contemplated at the present time.

Mr. R. Bell: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether visas are still necessary for citizens of the German Federal Republic visiting this country; and when this formality will be abolished.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I would refer my hon. Friend to my hon. Friend's written reply to the hon. Member for Attercliffe (Mr. J. Hynd) on 20th May.

Mr. Bell: Does my right hon. and learned Friend not realise that the value of these visas has been greatly overrated


and that in those cases where the visa requirement has been abolished no serious inconvenience has resulted? In view of the fact that the Federal German Republic have abolished the requirement of visas from British subjects as from 1st July, should we not seriously consider reciprocal action?

Mr. Lloyd: We have gone as far as we can in present crcumstances by making no charge for visas for German nationals holding valid Federal German passports.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED KINGDOM AND GERMANY (AMBASSADORS)

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when the British High Commissioner in Germany is to be given the personal rank of Ambassador; and when similar status is to be conferred on the German Chargé d'Affaires in London.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick was given the personal rank of Ambassador on 6th July. The German Federal Government have also conferred the personal rank of Ambassador on Dr. Schlange-Schoeningen.

Mr. Bellenger: While this seems to be a step in the direction of renewing more normal relations between the two countries, can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether this is purely an improvement only in the personal status of these two individuals or whether it has more far-reaching implications?

Mr. Lloyd: It is an improvement in the personal status of the two representatives referred to. It does not affect the status of their missions.

Sir H. Williams: What really is meant by the words "personal rank of Ambassador"? Is the man an Ambassador or not an Ambassador?

Mr. Lloyd: I think he enjoys the personal rank of Ambassador.

Oral Answers to Questions — MORAY FIRTH (FOREIGN TRAWLERS)

Sir R. Boothby: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the unilateral action already

taken by certain Powers, he will give renewed consideration to the question of closing the valuable spawning grounds of the Moray Firth against the depredations of foreign trawlers.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The question whether Her Majesty's Government should apply to the British coast the baseline methods approved by The Hague Court in the case of Norway remains under consideration. As my hon. Friend will realise, in so far as any action to close the Moray Firth to foreign trawlers would involve a change in our policy in regard to territorial waters, Her Majesty's Government have to take into account all the political, strategic and economic effects which might follow.

Sir R. Boothby: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that this matter has been under the active consideration of successive Governments for rather over 25 years? As there is no doubt whatsoever what ought to be done in the interests of the fishing industry, does my right hon. and learned Friend not think it is about time that Her Majesty's Government came to a decision to do the right thing?

Mr. Lloyd: I quite see that this course would be in the interests of the fishing industry. Unfortunately, there are many other interests which we also have to consider, and for this country to take action to extend the scope of territorial waters would be a serious matter for us.

Mr. G. R. Howard: Does my right hon. and learned Friend not agree that with the great dangers we face in England of over-fishing, we should consider taking the same action as other nations take on this very vexed question?

Mr. Lloyd: If this matter is regarded from the point of view of conservation, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture should be asked about it.

Mr. Younger: Will the Minister of State avoid taking any action which appears to sanction as a general proposition the finding of The Hague Court in a particular case with Norway in recent proceedings?

Sir R. Boothby: I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — ISRAEL AND JORDAN (GENERAL GLUBB'S STATEMENT)

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the nature of the official representations made by the Israeli Government about the statement made in Amman on 18th June by General Glubb, concerning border incidents between Israel and Jordan.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The Israel Ambassador on behalf of his Government made representations to Her Majesty's Government on 22nd June about the recent statement made by General Glubb. I see no reason to disclose the nature of confidential representations, and so depart from the normal rules of diplomatic courtesy.

Mr. Wyatt: Is the Minister of State aware that in the course of his statement General Glubb did not confine himself to the details of border incidents but went into a general anti-semitic tirade of an exceptionally offensive and unpleasant nature? What control have the British Government over General Glubb? To what extent does General Glubb speak for the British Government, because he is thought of throughout the whole of Israel as a British officer in the British subsidised Arab Legion who is entitled to be speaking for the British Government?

Mr. Lloyd: The Question deals only with
official representations made by the Israeli Government. …
In fact. General Glubb is a servant of the Jordan Government, to whom he is responsible. There is no obligation upon him to consult Her Majesty's Government, and H.M. Government are not called upon to comment upon his views.

Oral Answers to Questions — HUMAN RIGHTS (U.N. RESOLUTION)

Mr. Morley: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs which nations have now subscribed the Declaration of Human Rights.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I assume the hon. Member is referring to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly at its Third Session on 10th December, 1948. This

Declaration does not require signature or ratification but is in the form of a Resolution proclaiming the ideals of the members of the United Nations. I will, with permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the list of the 48 States which voted for this Resolution.

Mr. Morley: Is the Minister aware that members of the Baptist community in Spain have been heavily fined and in Czechoslovakia have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment merely for practising their faith? Will he have this matter raised in the General Assembly of the United Nations as an infringement of the Declaration of Human Rights?

Mr. Lloyd: The Question refers only to the number of nations which have subscribed to the Declaration. The hon. Member is trying to draw me on to rather different ground.

Miss Lee: Is there any nation which has taken the principles enunciated in the Declaration and has put them into practice?

Mr. Lloyd: I hope that there are certain nations, of which we are one, which have gone a very long way to implement these principles.

Following is the list:
Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia. Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Siam, Sweden, Syria. Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN SERVICE

Arabic Language

Mr. N. Macpherson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what proportion of Her Majesty's diplomatic representatives in the Middle East speak Arabic fluently.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Of the Foreign Service staff in diplomatic posts in Arabic-speaking countries about 40 per cent. are fluent Arabic speakers. Special measures have been taken by my right hon. Friend to improve upon that proportion.

Mr. Macpherson: Whilst I am gratified that my right hon. and learned Friend attaches importance to this matter, may I ask whether he is prepared to make use of the services of Arabic-speaking men who have had experience in British Government service in the Sudan and have become available?

Mr. Lloyd: That is what in fact is already done.

Service Attachés

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many new attachés have been appointed to foreign governments since 1st June, 1953.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I assume that the hon. Member is referring to the appointment of Service and civilian specialist attachés to Her Majesty's Diplomatic Missions abroad. Since 1st June, 1953, seven Service attachés have been appointed. During the same period four Service attachés whose appointments Were approved before that date have taken up their appointments. All these appointments have been replacements of officers in existing posts and no new posts have been created.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that recently it was explained that it was the policy of Her Majesty's Government to economise in these different attachés? Is there any good reason why there should be a new Air Attaché appointed at Brussels, where there is already a considerable diplomatic staff?

Mr. Lloyd: There was an Air Attaché at Brussels; he is being replaced at present. In the view of Her Majesty's Government it is necessary to have such an officer at that post.

Oral Answers to Questions — DROGHEDA COMMITTEE REPORT

Sir J. Lucas: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the Drogheda Committee has yet reported; and if he will make this available to hon. Members in the Vote Office.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The answer to the first part of the Question is "No, Sir." As regards the second part, I have

nothing to add to my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. J. Rodgers) on 10th June.

Sir J. Lucas: How long have they been sitting and what is the reason for the delay?

Mr. Lloyd: From memory I cannot say how long they have been sitting, but as far as the future is concerned, we hope that this Report will be ready in the next few weeks.

Mr. Ernest Davies: Will the Minister give an undertaking that the Report will be published as soon as it is received, or when the Government have had time to consider it?

Mr. Lloyd: In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Sir J. Lucas), the Committee began sitting last September. On the question of publication, we have already said that when the Report is available we shall consider that matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — AUSTRIAN TREATY (BRITISH NOTE)

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what reply has been received to the Note delivered to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on 11th June, in regard to the Austrian Treaty and inviting them to state the exact text of the Treaty which they were prepared to conclude.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: None, Sir.

Mr. Davies: In view of the repeated statements by spokesmen of the Soviet Union that they see no reason why the Austrian Treaty should not be settled through diplomatic channels, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman remind the Soviet Union that we are awaiting their reply to the Note in order that the Treaty negotiations can be continued?

Mr. Lloyd: I think there is no doubt on the part of the Soviet Union that we are awaiting an answer, but I will certainly consider the question of reminding them.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDO-CHINA (BRITISH AID)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what support Her Majesty's Government are


giving to the French Union forces in Indo-China in accordance with the Resolution adopted by the North Atlantic Council on 15th December, 1952; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Her Majesty's Government have always given most sympathetic consideration to any requests for the provision of material assistance to the Forces of France and the Associated States in their fight against the Communist rebels. For example, they have furnished considerable quantities of ammunition, and they will continue to do everything possible within their resources to meet further requests.

Mr. Henderson: Has the Minister any evidence which supports the statement, published in certain London newspapers recently, that Chinese Communist troops are fighting in Indo-China?

Mr. Lloyd: I think that is another question, of which I should like to have notice.

Oral Answers to Questions — GIBRALTAR

Captain Waterhouse: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what negotiations have recently taken place to hand Gibraltar over to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: None, Sir.

Captain Waterhouse: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that his most satisfactory reply should kill foolish reports, started by an American columnist and repeated in this country?

Mr. Lloyd: I certainly hope so.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL BODIES (GRANTS)

Mr. Hoy: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why the grant-in-aid of the expenses of the Council of Europe has been increased by over 20 per cent. in 1953–54 as compared with the previous year; and what steps he took to investigate the need for this increase.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Over half of the increase in the grant-in-aid is for our share in an increase in the Council of Europe's Working Capital Fund. The

remainder can be attributed to an increase in the Council's budget for 1953. Her Majesty's Government scrutinised these increases carefully before approving them.

Mr. Hoy: Is the assistance of the Comptroller and Auditor General called in to inquire into this increase in expenditure?

Mr. Lloyd: That is a question of which I should like notice.

Mr. Edelman: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that our contribution to the Council of Europe has steadily risen in inverse ratio to the desire of the Government to make the Council of Europe an effective instrument of unity? In view of the fact that the cost has risen, will he now allow the Council of Europe, for the first time, to be debated in this House?

Mr. Lloyd: I certainly do not accept the first part of the hon. Member's supplementary question. The second part of the question is not a matter for me to answer.

Mr. Hollis: Whereas the Assembly of the Council of Europe met only twice last year and is due to meet four times this year, surely that accounts for the disparity in the figures?

Mr. Hoy: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps he takes, before authorising grants-in-aid to international bodies, to ensure that such grants are spent with due regard for economy; and if he will make it a condition of such grants that the bodies to whom they are paid shall publish annual audited accounts.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Grants to international bodies, for which provision is made in Foreign Office Estimates, are for the most part calculated in accordance with detailed budgets which are closely scrutinised by committees composed of representatives from contributing countries, on which the United Kingdom is usually represented, before their submission to a Council of contributing countries for approval. United Kingdom representatives wherever possible press for economy.
Annual audited accounts of expenditure by the bodies concerned are made available to the Foreign Office. In the


case of the United Nations bodies, audited accounts are submitted to and passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Mr. Hoy: Can the Minister say if that reply means that the Council of Europe also issue audited accounts? Are the audited accounts of these various organisations submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General for his inspection?

Mr. Lloyd: I should like notice of both those supplementary questions.

Sir R. Boothby: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the insularity of the Labour Party is becoming almost unendurable?

Mr. Nicholson: Is it not a fact that in spite of all this scrutiny the expenditure of these bodies tends to go up and up?

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN DEFENCE COMMUNITY

Mr. Noel-Baker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will now state what proposals have been made by Her Majesty's Government to the French Government concerning United Kingdom support for the European Defence Community.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir. Our proposals are still under discussion with the European Defence Community powers.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Since the proposals of Her Majesty's Government may well be decisive in the attitude adopted towards E.D.C. by Continental parliaments, and since they obviously affect the commitments of the United Kingdom in a very important way, would it not be of advantage if the House of Commons could be informed of them now?

Mr. Lloyd: I certainly agree that it would be an advantage if the House of Commons could be informed of these proposals, but there are six different governments concerned, with whom negotiations have to take place. As soon as those negotiations reach a stage at which publicity can be given, we certainly will inform the House.

Mr. Wyatt: Does the Minister realise that we are now reaching an intolerable situation in which the Government hide

their lack of initiative and ability to make constructive proposals behind a screen of pretending that because other governments are involved they can do nothing about it, and that this has been going on for six months?

Mr. Lloyd: The supplementary question is completely inaccurate. The reason why information has not been given publicly is the one I have just explained. In good time the hon. Member will see precisely what proposals we have made and will see that there are very good reasons for the course we have pursued.

Mr. Shinwell: How can we tell if the proposals made are satisfactory unless we are told what they are? Are we to leave this matter entirely to the discretion of Her Majesty's Government? Has this assembly no right to express an opinion on these proposals?

Mr. Lloyd: I certainly agree that the House of Commons have a right to express an opinion on these proposals and in due course will be able to exercise that right, but at the moment this matter is at the discretion of Her Majesty's Government, who were charged with responsibility at the last election.

Mr. Shinwell: Does the Minister not realise that if the proposals—of which we are not yet aware—are negotiated and eventually accepted it becomes a fait accompli and we shall be asked to accept them without having opportunity to discuss them in advance?

Mr. Lloyd: That, of course, was precisely the course which was followed by the late Government in matters of international negotiation.

Oral Answers to Questions — FISH TRANSPORT, WICK

Sir D. Robertson: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware of the insanitary and obsolete railway vans which are used for the carriage of fish from Wick to southern markets which frequently cause fish of living quality to be delivered in a condemnable condition; and if he will take immediate steps to prevent further losses of the nation's food by conferring with the British Transport Commission with a view to their providing four refrigerated vans daily at Wick Station.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Charles Hill): I understand that a full report has now


been sent by the British Transport Commission direct to the hon. Member.

Sir D. Robertson: Is it not the case that my hon. Friend has seen a copy of that report, and does not that admit the charge contained in the Question that wholly insanitary vans are used and also the statement that the Transport Commission have not enough refrigerated vans for the traffic which is their responsibility, and will he take steps with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport to put that right?

Dr. Hill: No doubt the hon. Gentleman will continue his correspondence with the British Transport Commission, and no doubt he will consider the possibility of raising the matter with the Scottish Committee of the White Fish Authority.

Sir D. Robertson: That is not the Question asked. I asked what the Minister intended to do.

Oral Answers to Questions — KOREA (TRUCE TALKS)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a further statement on the progress of the negotiations and discussions with President Rhee.

Mr. Morley: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a further statement on the progress of the armistice negotiations in Korea.

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the renewed truce negotiations in Korea.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. R. A. Butler): The full armistice delegations resumed their meetings at Panmunjom on 10th July and have since continued to meet each day in closed session. Mr. Walter Robertson's discussions with President Syngman Rhee have ended. On 12th July a joint statement, which the House will have seen reported in the Press, announced that the exchanges of views which had taken place had gone far towards achieving mutual understanding. Mr. Robertson is now on his way back to the United States. Her Majesty's Government are expecting a further report from the United States Government.

Mr. Henderson: Have the Government any information about whether or not President Syngman Rhee has now withdrawn his objections to the Government of India being a member of the Supervisory Commission for the control of prisoners of war?

Mr. Butler: We did see a report that what are known as South Korean sources are reported to have said that Mr. Robertson agreed to ask the Communists to exclude India, Poland and Czechoslovakia from the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission to supervise prisoners. We have since ascertained that that is denied by the State Department.

Mr. Attlee: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen a statement in the Press, which appears to have annoyed Mr. Robertson, that Mr. Rhee was going back on what he agreed?

Mr. Butler: Yes, I have, and we made an attempt before this Question time to get a further statement from the United States Government about their views, but that has not yet come in. That is the report to which I referred.

Mr. Morley: Should the signing of an armistice be prevented by the action of President Syngman Rhee, can the acting Prime Minister give an assurance that the whole matter of future action in Korea will be referred to the United Nations?

Mr. Butler: I gave a previous answer on this subject and said there was at present contact between all the Governments involved about the possibility of the matter being brought there. I cannot add anything further to that statement.

Mr. Wyatt: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication of any sanction we have in mind to apply to President Syngman Rhee should he either break his personal relations with the United States or any armistice that is signed? That is the most important feature.

Mr. Butler: I fully understand the apprehension of the hon. Member and of the House in this very important matter. I think we had better register today that agreement was reached between Mr. Robertson and Mr. Rhee and that we have ascertained that two of the rumours in the Press are not true. That information we have received from the State Department. The point raised by the right


hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has not yet been answered, but I think we can hope the situation looks better than some reports make out.

Miss Lee: Is the Minister aware that for information to reach this country through Mr. Robertson seems a roundabout and a delayed procedure? There is a good deal of anxiety and suspicion, which should be allayed, about who is in fact supporting Syngman Rhee. Can we have more direct information?

Mr. Butler: That matter has been raised before and answers have been given indicating we are very closely in touch. But in view of the anxiety which I knew would be felt in the House, we have asked for a further report, and as soon as we get the information it will be given to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN OFFICE (MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY)

Mr. Benn: asked the Prime Minister which Minister is responsible for the conduct of the Foreign Office in the absence of the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister and the Acting Foreign Secretary.

Mr. Beswick: asked the Prime Minister which Minister is performing the duties at the Foreign Office of the Acting Foreign Secretary in the latter's absence at Washington.

Mr. R. A. Butler: During his visit to Washington, my noble Friend the Acting Foreign Secretary remains in charge of the Foreign Office.

Mr. Benn: In view of the fact that British foreign policy appears to be losing impetus and a sense of direction, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for a Cabinet Minister available in this country to be in charge of the Foreign Office, and preferably one also responsible to this House?

Mr. Butler: It is in accordance with precedent, at any rate it occurred at least twice under the late Government, that when the Foreign Secretary is temporarily absent, he still retains control of the Foreign Office. That is perfectly possible in these days of modern communications. Regarding the further observations of the

hon. Gentleman I should have thought the momentum of the foreign policy of Her Majesty's Government, which is already considerable, was now being carried forward by my noble Friend at Washington, and I do not doubt that when the results are seen the hon. Gentleman's views will be confounded.

Oral Answers to Questions — BERMUDA CONFERENCE

Mr. Lewis: asked the Prime Minister whether he has now had an opportunity of suggesting to President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Laniel that the venue of the proposed Bermuda Conference should be changed to London; and what was the nature of their replies.

Mr. R. A. Butler: At this stage no specific suggestion has been made but the question of a further Conference will naturally be considered in all its aspects by the three Foreign Ministers now meeting in Washington.

Mr. Lewis: Has the Chancellor seen the reports in the "New York Herald Tribune" and in the "New York Times" that President Eisenhower has suggested he would be willing to consider favourably this suggestion? Would the right hon. Gentleman therefore request the Acting Foreign Secretary to put the suggestion to the United States President?

Mr. Butler: Yes, I am fully aware of the reports to which the hon. Member refers. In fact, it was at a Press conference on 8th July. I think the hon. Member can rely upon my noble Friend to put that and every other relevant matter concerning a future conference in the course of the discussions.

Oral Answers to Questions — ATOMIC RESEARCH (EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to the official statement of President Eisenhower that the United States of America must adopt a co-operative attitude towards its allies on the matter of exchange of atomic information; and whether he will state the policy of Her Majesty's Government on the exchange of atomic information.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Yes, Sir. Her Majesty's Government, as always, would welcome any exchange of information on atomic matters provided it takes place on a fully reciprocal basis.

Mr. Henderson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if this exchange of information had been made possible in the last few years, many millions of pounds would have been saved by both countries which, in the absence of such co-operation, have had to be expended on research, material and so on?

Mr. Butler: We have had a certain amount of collaboration up to date. I do not think I can go further than my answer in the present situation.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: May I ask, in view of that statement, if a formal approach has been made to the American Government on this matter or whether it is to be left in the air awaiting other action?

Mr. Butler: I have no doubt that this Question and answer will have the effect the right hon. Gentleman desires.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF FOOD

Meat Traders, Scotland

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the dissatisfaction among meat traders in Scotland with the machinery and methods of consultation between them and his Deparment; and what steps he proposes in order to regain lost goodwill and bring about more effective cooperation.

Dr. Hill: Scottish meat traders are represented on the Consultative Committee for the Retail Meat Trade which considers with my Department national problems of meat distribution and we are always ready to have discussions with the Scottish Federation when they wish to raise specifically Scottish problems. These arrangements should be adequate for the free interchange of views which is my right hon. and gallant Friend's objective.

Mr. MacPherson: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that Scottish meat traders have not found these arrangements adequate; that there has been considerable criticism of the fact that

journeys to London took place for these national discussions and have been wasted as the Scottish point of view has not been listened to?

Dr. Hill: I am aware of some criticism, but the hon. Gentleman will realise that not only are Scottish representatives on the main consultative Committee, but it has been made plain that whenever there are specific Scottish questions to be considered my right hon. and gallant Friend will be glad to make arrangements to meet the Scottish representatives, on that Committee, as such.

Major Anstruther-Gray: Does my hon. Friend think that this will allay Scottish anxiety on this subject?

Dr. Hill: I hope my answer will go some way in that direction.

Ewe Mutton

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the issue which has arisen between his Department and the meat trade in Scotland in connection with the regulations he has imposed as from 5th July; whether he is aware that a temporary threat to the whole system of meat distribution is involved; and what steps he proposes in order to resolve the differences.

Mr. Hamilton: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that Lancashire butchers cannot sell their ewe mutton which they were obliged by his Department to accept; and what steps he is now contemplating to ensure that this meat is consumed by the public.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Fuel whether he will make a further statement about his discussions with meat traders about unsold ewe mutton.

Mr. Awbery: asked the Minister of Food why he made it a condition of sale to butchers that they would be supplied with other types of meat only if they accepted a proportion of ewe mutton; if he is aware that such a condition is contrary to the spirit of recent legislation; and if he will discontinue this imposition.

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that butchers are being threatened by his


Department with a cessation of meat supplies unless they accept unpalatable ewe mutton in a dictated proportion; and what steps he is taking to remove the officials responsible for these acts.

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that the Regulations he has imposed on the meat traders since 5th July have created an intolerable position for both the traders and the consuming public; and what steps he proposes to take to ease the situation.

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Minister of Food whether he has considered the result of a public opinion poll taken by Accrington butchers on the question of pork and imported mutton, details of which have been sent to him; and what action he proposes to take.

Dr. Hill: I would refer to the full statement I made on these matters in the course of the debate in the House on Wednesday, 8th July,

Mr. Hamilton: Is the Minister aware that the Lancashire butchers offered this ewe mutton to the Blackpool Tower Zoo at cut prices and the Zoo people refused it? What steps is the Minister taking to see that the lions and tigers eat their fair share of this rubbish?

Dr. Hill: I am glad to say there is some difference between the dietetic habits of the human species and other animals.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: Is it necessary to compel butchers to take meat for which some of them have no market? Would it not be possible for the Ministry to allow the butchers to say whether they want this meat or not and sell any not taken up for manufacturing purposes?

Dr. Hill: Since the beginning of rationing it has been necessary for successive Ministers of Food to require the butchers to take the same proportion of the various kinds and qualities of meat available. That requirement must continue while the present system obtains.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that at this moment there are thousands of butchers in conference assembled at Central Hall, Westminster? Will he step across the road and have a chat with them?

Dr. Hill: I would inform the hon. and gallant Gentleman that there is no need to step across the road, for they are sending a deputation to meet me at four o'clock.

Mr. Callaghan: Does the hon. Gentleman know that his statement is challenged by representative butchers who brought a deputation to Cardiff Members of Parliament last Wednesday to insist that there has never before been conditional sale of meat such as the Minister is now imposing upon them? If they are wrong, what steps will the hon. Gentleman take to show them that this policy is being carried out as before?

Dr. Hill: I assure the hon. Gentleman that apart from a period of relaxation for imported mutton over the last six months it has been a requirement since 1940 that butchers generally should take the same proportions of the kinds available.

Mr. Callaghan: Does not the hon. Gentleman know that the allegation of the butchers is that they have been free hitherto to decline to take certain portions of meat if they did not wish to do so? Why is the Ministry now tightening up on that procedure?

Dr. Hill: I assure the hon. Gentleman that, with the exception of imported mutton—in respect of which for the past six months there has been a relaxation which is now ending—it has been a requirement since the beginning that the same proportions should be accepted by all.

ISMAILIA (ABDUCTED AIRMAN)

Mr. F. Maclean: Mr. F. Maclean (by Private Notice) asked the Minister of State if he will make a statement regarding the abduction from Ismailia on 9th July of Leading Aircraftman A. V. Rigden.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Yes, Sir. Leading Aircraftman Rigden is believed to have been abducted from a hotel in the centre of Ismailia by two Egyptians on the night of Thursday, 9th July. The British Military Authorities had strong grounds for believing that one of the two Egyptians seen with Rigden at the time of his abduction was an Egyptian officer and that the Egyptian authorities therefore knew about the incident. A British


officer accordingly visited the Sub-Governor of Ismailia on 10th July to try and secure the co-operation of the Egyptian authorities to recover Rigden.
Since by the following day nothing effective had been done by the Egyptian authorities, the officer commanding the Northern Area of the Zone, on instructions from the General Officer Commanding British Troops in Egypt, visited the Sub-Governor of Ismailia and informed him that unless Rigden was returned by 9 a.m. on 13th July General Festing reserved the right to take certain measures which were bound to cause inconvenience to a large number of inhabitants in the Area.
Rigden has not been returned and measures have therefore been taken as from 9 a.m. this morning to stop and search all traffic entering or leaving Ismailia by road or rail.
In addition, Her Majesty's Embassy have made urgent representations to the Egyptian Government.

Mr. Maclean: Is the Minister aware that these measures will commend widespread approval?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House.)—[Mr. Crookshank.]

Orders of the Day — FINANCE BILL

Order for Third Reading read.

3.35 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
The House now enters upon the last lap of our discussions on the Finance Bill which it began three months ago less one day. The Third Reading of the Bill generally, and I think conventionally, has perhaps rather the character of a formal exercise than of a pitched battle. One of my hon. and learned Friends, in the course of professional practice at the Bar, was once told by a very eminent judge that in his argument he had said all, and more than all, that could be said on behalf of his client. I am inclined to think that all, and more than all, that can be said about the Finance Bill has already been said.
My right hon. Friend's proposals, which he opened in that memorable speech just three months ago, have been subjected to a very proper but very meticulous examination. Every Clause of the Bill has had justification demanded and I suggest to the House that that justification has been given. There is no doubt at all that, in accordance with our time-honoured and, I think, most admirable practice, my right hon. Friend's financial proposals for the year have been subjected to the real test of Parliamentary analysis. They have been through the fires of criticism, though I must say that they seem to have emerged a little brighter for that.
A good deal of the criticism which has been levelled at them has been of that rather agreeable character which starts on the basis that the proposals are so obviously good that my right hon. Friend is urged to go even further in the direction which they indicate. That, though it is a matter perhaps of judgment as to the extent to which they can be extended, none the less is a type of criticism which is sometimes not wholly disagreeable to the Government of the day.
The Bill has shown less physical change than most of its predecessors of recent


years. It began with 33 Clauses and two Schedules and comes forward now for Third Reading with 35 Clauses and three Schedules, symbolising, perhaps, my right hon. Friend's success in combating inflation. Indeed, it is an interesting reflection that whereas last year's Bill was of such a size at this stage that Her Majesty's Stationery Office had to charge 4s. for it, hon. Members can purchase the present Bill for the much smaller sum of 1s. 3d., thereby again symbolising my right hon. Friend's success in the realm of prices.
None the less, I am very happy to concede that, during the debates, and as a result of suggestions made from one side of the House or the other, improvements have been made in the Bill. Indeed, hon. Members who have seen my right hon. Friend's conduct of two Finance Bills have noticed the full use that he makes of the Parliamentary process in improving his Measures. But, notwithstanding that, the main features remain, I think I can claim, substantially as they were expounded in the Budget speech.
There remains the conspicuous features of the solid reductions in the burden of direct taxation upon industry and the individual, the stimulus to investment of the restoration of initial allowances, the removal from both industry and the consumer of at least some of the burden of the Purchase Tax. Each and all of these are part of the process, which my right hon. Friend initiated last year, of working towards a more freely functioning and less heavily burdened economy, to a more competitive economy in which enterprise would not be denied opportunity nor hard work and hard thought their just reward.
These alleviations will still leave us, relative to our resources, the most heavily taxed nation in the world, a state of affairs which is inevitable while we simultaneously maintain a massive defence effort and maintain and improve our incomparable social services, but they do leave the burden less heavy than it was on the taxpayer, with a sense of movement towards freedom and opportunity, and a sense, too, that the Government of the day understand and sympathise with the very heavy burden which the British taxpayer has carried, all but uncomplainingly, for a good many years now.
This lightening of the load has been well and humanly spread. The reduction in the standard rate of Income Tax and in the rates of tax at each of the three reduced rates, has given some relief to every actual payer of Income Tax in the country—some 16½ million people—with, of course, a proportionately bigger relief in the tax burden at the bottom of the scale. The reduction of the standard rate of Income Tax has, at the same time, relieved industry of a burden of £45 million a year. The decision to bring the Excess Profits Levy to an end at the end of this year is a particular encouragement to the up and coming industries or the expanding concerns. The bringing back of the initial allowance will play its part in encouraging investment.
The widely-spread Purchase Tax reliefs which flow from the reduction of the three main rates will bring help in a direction in which it was not possible to bring it last year. Indeed, we have been attacked because some of this relief has gone on Purchase Tax at the highest rates, and, during the debate, it has been suggested that there was no justification for such a concession in the direction of what might be described as luxuries. No product is a luxury to the man who earns his living by making it, and many of the industries in this particular category are industries in which this country owes, and will continue to owe, a great deal to the skill and craftsmanship of workers, managers and designers. So far as the highest rates of Purchase Tax are concerned, some relief is brought to a number of our most ancient and our most skilful industries.
The consumer, equally, will benefit from the reductions which follow in the price of certain articles which he, or, in this context, perhaps more relevantly she, will buy. The human needs of many most admirable citizens are also helped by the increase in the limits for age relief from £500 to £600, while, at the other end of the age scale, the relief which was introduced on the Report stage and which flows from the doubling of the amount which apprentices can earn without depriving their parents of the child allowance, will bring a good deal of help to a considerable number of families.
At the same time, the increase in the allowance for dependent relatives, and in respect of a daughter who works at home,


will again bring help to a good number of people who have found conditions difficult in recent years. That is why I say that, apart from the broad economic plan, not only have these reliefs been spread in the directions which we think will be of the greatest economic benefit to this nation, but steps have also been taken at one and the same time to try to give them in many directions in which hardship can be relieved.
On the more technical and complex part of the Bill, the House will recall the changes, many of them the result of the patient inquiries of the Radcliffe Commission or the Millard Tucker Committee, for relieving the various difficulties or inequities in our system of taxation, and, in particular, the examples which we have chosen in many cases are examples that will give some assistance to those of our adventurous fellow-citizens who trade abroad. For the farmers, there is again the welcome extension of the opportunity to use the herd basis when foot-and-mouth disease strikes their herds, and, at the same time, a very different section of the community—authors—have benefited from the proposal with respect to the spread of their taxation.
In the field of Entertainments Duty, my right hon. Friend has made a very helpful concession to those who play games themselves by the granting of the amateur concession in respect of Entertainments Duty, and, at this moment, if the climate of Manchester permits, a Test Match is being played under untaxed conditions. I put in that hypothetical climatic condition with due respect to that ancient and distinguished city.
Other points which mean a great deal to certain sections of the community are the provision, which has been advocated for many years, by which the contents of houses can be taken in settlement of death duties, as well as the houses themselves, and, similarly, helpful reliefs have been given by way of Stamp Duty to local authorities taking advantage, as so many appear to be, of their new freedom to borrow on the stock market, and, at the same time, to help the National Savings movement, to which this country owes so much, by freeing a good many of its documents from Stamp Duty.
In these smaller and more technical ways, the broad picture of my right hon. friend's proposals has been filled in, and

although this Bill, in physical bulk, is slimmer than many of its predecessors, it is perhaps all the more athletic for that, and it is certainly the case that, apart from the major issues to which I have referred, a great deal of detailed care and attention has been given to particular, special and perhaps rather technical issues.
Just as the ornamentation of the façade of a great building can obscure the strength and clarity of the architectural plan, so I suppose these details can, unless they are treated as details, mask the clarity and the design of my right hon. Friend's proposals. These main proposals are based upon the fact that last year's measures, supported by the monetary policy of which my right hon. Friend resumed the use, have checked the conditions which required a certain aridity in our budgeting and enabled my right hon. Friend to proceed at this stage in a way calculated to reinvigorate our economy.
They take into account the fact that our economy is ultimately run by human beings with the human desire that their efforts shall bring to them and to their families increased rewards as their efforts increase and that, whatever the plans of theoretical economists may dictate, if one ignores that instinct to assist oneself and one's family, which is, of course, the dynamic in a free enterprise society, plans, however pretentious, will fail against that human element.
The proposals of my right hon. Friend take full account of that human element and take advantage of the conditions, to which his policy has worked, which have enabled these measures to be taken in this Bill towards both the stimulation and the freeing of our economy. They have taken into account the great danger, as many of us see it, of a period of exceptionally high taxation and excessive restrictionism too long prolonged, with the damage which such a state of affairs produces in damping down the spirit of initiative and enterprise without which our complex modern economic society will not work.
Therefore, having overcome many of the problems which necessitated a strict low diet, my right hon. Friend has, perhaps, enriched a little the national mixture and taken into account the need, not only in the abstract sense, to stimulate investment, but, in the very practical and


human sense, the need to stimulate the taking of risks, the acceptance of extra responsibility and the doing, where opportunity offers, of extra tasks. The attraction of the central theme of the proposals of this Bill will be inadequate unless it takes into account the fact that it consists not only of nicely calculated economic measures, but of measures calculated to take into account that human and humane consideration without which the very best of economic planning will fail.

Mr. Anthony Crosland: Hear, hear.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman, after some years in the wilderness, has seen the error of his ways and has shown a becoming humanity which some of us on this side have not always been able to detect behind his sombre features.
But this Bill offers—and this is really its essential point—initiative and opportunity such as our people have not known for 14 years. It will succeed if that opportunity is taken. I believe that our people will take the opportunity which the greater freedom and the lightening of burdens that this Bill involves offers to them, and that if they take that opportunity this Bill will mark a not unimportant milestone on the path of our upward course to recovery.

3.52 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: Neglecting, for the moment, some of the higher theology so persuasively expounded by the Financial Secretary, I agree with him on one point. This is a slim Budget in many senses of the word. I noticed in one of the newspapers this morning a picture of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was engaged with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply in a bargain sale of iron and steel, and I was amused to hear that this picture was reflected when the Financial Secretary told us that one of the main attractions of the Finance Bill was that one could buy the whole of it for 1s. 3d. There has been, as the caricature portrayed, a smashing reduction in prices.
I think that the Minister of Supply was very well advised to consult the Chancellor because the Chancellor is an expert in shop window dressing, and I

find in this Finance Bill a number of perfectly obvious selling points. The first of them, of course, is the reduction of Income Tax. The next, I agree, is the reduction of Purchase Tax, and the third is initial allowances.
It required my astute and hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Crosland) to point out earlier in these proceedings that two of those concessions, and one other elsewhere in the Bill, were simply the withdrawal of measures which had been put on temporarily for the purposes of an exceedingly swift and heavy rearmament programme and that what, in fact, had happened was that as the rearmament programme became less swift, and, therefore, from year to year less heavy, it was no longer necessary to keep that exceptional taxation for that purpose. That, of course, applies to the 6d. on the Income Tax which was put on in 1951. I quite understand that in those circumstances, and having regard to that change, some lightening of the burden, some shifting of the load on the camel, as the Financial Secretary seemed to put it, was quite possible.
I shall not repeat at any great length what is so obvious about that method of doing it because it has been said several times already, but I want to point out that whatever one may say about this method of taking off some of the Income Tax burden, the results of so doing are, from the point of view of the ordinary man, perfectly obvious. I will take no exceptional example of people with exceptional incomes. I will simply take the most common case of all, the ordinary married man with an ordinary family which is statistically, I believe, somewhere about two children.
If such a man is getting £10 a week—and, after all, that is the kind of thing one has to consider—he benefits by exactly 1d. a week out of this reduction—4s. 4d. a year. Double the income, and he makes £10. Double it again to £2,000 a year, and he makes £30. Bring it up to £5,000 a year and he makes £100 out of this reduction. That shows quite clearly that this is not a matter of percentage, but a question of where the burden is to be lightened, and that the amount taken off the shoulders of the wage earner, even the skilled wage earner, by this concession is negligible.
The benefit derived by the man with a moderate income is moderate, but I need hardly say that in the case of the fortunate recipient of an astronomical income, the benefit conferred on him is an astronomical one. Let us leave him out for the minute and let us take the ordinary people in the country who are, after all, the bulk of the taxpayers. As far as they are concerned, there would have been at least two far better ways of disposing of this Income Tax concession of £89 million, and both have been suggested in the course of the discussions on this Bill.
One of them would have been to have raised even further the limit of income and thereby to have relieved a number of people at the bottom of the scale from paying Income Tax at all. These are the people who, the longer the Labour Government were in power, found their numbers increased by successive changes of that kind, and the people from whom, on the whole, it costs most to collect Income Tax, and whom, I should have thought, were quite clearly entitled to at least their fair share, and even more than their fair share, of whatever concession is given. I say more than their fair share, for the reason that if this was intended to be a Budget of incentive then it seems to me that the incentive to be obtained in that way would have been far greater and wider in its operation than anything which could have been done merely by altering the rate of tax.
Another method equally far more fruitful in its incentive effect would have been to increase the earned income allowance. That, again, was suggested in the course of our debates. It would have cost out of that £89 million—with a corresponding increase for small incomes—a little over £50 million, and I venture to think that the effect of it by way of incentive would have been far more direct and that its result would have been far more effective. At this stage of the Bill I cannot go further, obviously, into suggestions of that sort. I wish to say a few words about the other selling lines.
We have had a general reduction in all three rates of Purchase Tax and they seem to raise a question of principle—the Financial Secretary likes questions of principle—rather similar to that raised by the initial allowances. The effect of a general lowering of Purchase Tax is similar to the

effect of a lowering of the rate of Income Tax in the respect I have just been discussing. It confers a benefit or gives an alleviation which is greater, the greater the sum involved. Consequently, to those who make few and humble purchases the advantage is less than to those who make many and more costly purchases.
This concession corresponds in the field of expenditure exactly with the concession in Income Tax. It reflects the same policy and the same view of life, and to the ordinary man it has exactly the same disadvantages. Instead of taking altogether out of the scope of Purchase Tax the ordinary and common things in use, as was done from time to time when the Labour Government were in power, the Chancellor has chosen the simpler method, and the better selling line, of a general lowering of Purchase Tax, and has conferred a benefit which is the more extensive the larger the expenditure.
How a relief of Purchase Tax in that form can be said to promote national economy, and the savings which I thought were as dear to Government supporters as they are dear to us, I absolutely fail to understand. It is easy in practice, effective as a piece of propaganda and exactly right as a selling line, but dead wrong in principle. It is unfair to the ordinary humble purchaser by comparison with those who happen to be able to afford to spend more. Here, again, is a simple sweeping change.
Now I come to the initial allowances. I do not forget what the effect of the change in the Income Tax is, as the Chancellor said:
I shall have put some £45 million in the way of the undistributed profits of industry by way of relief of tax."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th June, 1953; Vol. 516, c. 548.]
That phrase is very interesting. That is one form of relief for companies. Another is the initial allowances. The first question I asked myself about the Income Tax relief, talking of companies is, "Do companies need that form of relief at the moment?" I doubt it. It will be welcome, as any relief of taxation is welcome, but that there is a shortage in undistributed profits is not borne out by the figures of cash returns and similar items, which, making allowance for loans and overdrafts, improved steadily during 1952. The indications are that they are growing at the moment, but the companies are being given £45 million relief of Income


Tax. What will they do with it? What inducement is there for them to use that money in the way in which it ought to be used, to promote more investment?
I wish that more had been done by way of initial allowances. This is a halfhearted restoration as regards the largest group of initial allowances, that is, for plant and machinery. These are restored, but only at half the level at which they were taken off in 1951. We would rather that initial allowances were more discriminatory and not less. They are a discriminatory concession both as between buildings and plant and machinery, and as between plant and machinery and mining. The Government are asked to take one step further through the Finance Bill and deliberately to encourage the aims to which we used to hear lip service from hon. Gentlemen opposite, but from whom we have met with a sudden and unreasoning objection to discriminatory taxation.
I take the view, and I hope I have a considerable amount of support for it, that this discriminatory taxation is the legitimate and proper weapon to be used in the national interest, especially at this time. After all, a Finance Bill of this sort is a bit of a gamble, and the future for the next year or two is highly uncertain. If concessions are to be made, they should be made specifically to encourage one or two of those things. This is the kind of thing that the Chancellor has been recommending the banks to do in the distribution of their advances; why should he not follow out his own precepts and use taxation for giving further encouragement?
I have in mind increased production in all sorts of ways, for example, in fuel-saving machinery. It is not increased production, in a sense, but it comes to the same thing. The same is true of mechanical handling and half-a-dozen other things. It is just the kind of thing to encourage companies to put their money into at the moment, and if we see that it is usefully done who shall say that it does not serve a good purpose?
What about exports? We have heard a lot about the distribution of initial allowances in that direction. Again, what about the Commonwealth and its development? Is it only lip-service that we should pay to it? Are we to throw away a chance when we have it, in these initial

allowances, to give very great encouragement to the Commonwealth? These Budget concessions look very large when we are dealing with matters of initial allowances and capital investment which will' have to be on a very large scale, but what could be done in this country would not be enormous; yet it would be something. It would be valuable at a time when things are moving. The world is at the-stage when a helpful push here and there-might make a lot of difference to the future of our country and other countries which are bound up with us.
I have been dealing with some of the selling lines, but I should not like to leave this Finance Bill without one or two short and general comments about the rest of it. I have been looking through the various Clauses. First, I find in Clause 5, which has to do with the duty on trailers to motor cycles, in Clause 7 which gives-exemption from Entertainments Duty to amateur sports and entertainments, and in Clause 8, which exempts cricket matches from Entertainments Duty, three-instances of exactly the same fault. Theseare three cases in which the Government have gone just far enough to put themselves into a wholly untenable position-for the future and have not had the courage to go the whole way.
The case of the trailer is a small matter, but there is no rhyme or reason in lowering the duty on trailers attached to small cycles and refusing to do the same in the case of the larger cycles. We have discussed the duty on amateur entertainments very fully and I shall not repeat that discussion now but this is, as the Chancellor himself has fully and openly recognised, a case for a little generosity in the interests of the drama and opera conducted by amateurs. The Government have been too close on definitions. The Treasury mind has been in operation again. I hope that the Treasury heart, if the Chancellor keeps it, will have a go next year and complete the work that has been begun.
Then there is the exemption granted to cricket. I confess that I was a rather bad hand at cricket and not very good at quite a number of other games, but why this absurd distinction between one case and another? Why refuse, in the-case of other games, what is conceded in the case of one? The Government can argue about it, but when they are driven


to say that the reason for it is that Commonwealth cricket, if I may so refer to it, is a different matter from Commonwealth rugby or Commonwealth some other game, they are driven to the kind of position which they are not going to hold for very long in this country.
I am quite certain that next year, the Chancellor, whether he likes it or not, will have to go a little further that way under the pressure of opinion from large numbers of people who are more concerned with our more plebeian games than cricket always is. I know that cricket appeals to almost everybody, but there is a strong case for many other games, not least for ordinary football.
Next, I take another group of Clauses and I come to another matter that really troubles me. They are a highly technical lot of Clauses and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) in this respect, as also in connection with the film duty earlier in the Budget debates, made a very useful contribution, as I am sure the Government will acknowledge. Clauses 19 to 26 are tough eating. They took a lot of time to understand and I find that they are still very difficult. But my simple mind reaches one conclusion—that out of those eight Clauses only two are designed to stop loopholes and the other six consist of concessions.
That is not quite good enough. There are more loopholes than that and in stopping one of the loopholes we found a very curious position. It had been open for so long that it could not be stopped at once because a number of people were half way through the loophole and it would not be fair to them. The Government really must be careful of the reputation of the Tory Party. There are quite a number of people who think that the Tory Party are much more concerned with giving concessions than with stopping loopholes. This kind of thing will encourage that belief.
I ask for the Chancellor's sympathy in one respect. It is incredibly difficult for an Opposition, tied by the very proper rules of procedure in connection with finance, to do very much in this respect. It has to be done by the Government. If we wanted to limit expenses we should have to put an additional charge in the

Finance Bill and we cannot do so. We are driven to all sorts of expedients to raise the matter as it ought to be raised.
It is up to the Chancellor and up to the Tory Party, with their somewhat unfortunate reputation in that respect, to have another look at this question of expenses and to remember that there are two types of people concerned. There is the man who is taxed on P.A.Y.E. and incurs what he regards as proper and necessary expenses and is not allowed them as the law stands, and there is the man who is allowed to make very considerable deductions and sometimes, I understand, makes even more considerable ones on his own from his earnings or from the earnings of a company with which he is concerned under Schedule D
These seem to me to be matters of great importance. All that one can say at this stage is that a couple of long stops in the whole of this rather large cricket team are not very much. I hope that the Chancellor will have a rather fatter Budget in form next year, if he is to provide for this matter properly. I agree that two long stops are rather an unusual allowance in cricket, but in a Finance Bill we should have many more. The Budget is certainly a good selling line. It is not for me, at the moment, to say how far the taking of risks of the sort involved in the Budget was justified or not. That would involve an inadmissible discussion of what had happened to stocks, what was the world background and a whole host of things that have been discussed already.
If, having pushed aside for the moment the head salesman or his assistant, with their wealth of language and a certain persuasiveness, one turns to the real root of the matter, one finds at the end that this is a soft Budget, a soft Budget in a Tory way because its concessions are, in the main, in favour of the fairly prosperous. It declines to use the fiscal weapon to give a direction as to the way in which investment ought to go, particularly in the matter of initial allowances, and, lastly, it is slow either to go the whole way in the small matters that I have mentioned or, in the last resort, to be assiduous and searching in stopping gaps in taxation and expenditure which we all know still exist.

4.20 p.m.

Mr. A. C. M. Spearman: The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) referred to the standing of the Conservative Party in the country. I can well understand his concern in that matter at the present time. He did not see fit to pay a tribute—and perhaps this is understandable, sitting where he does—to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the extraordinary difference in conditions today compared with what they were a year ago when we were discussing the Third Reading of the Finance Bill and when a run on the £ was not considered to be out of the question. The £ abroad now has a degree of confidence which has not existed for a long time.
I remember once being told that Charles James Fox said of one of Nelson's victories that the advantage to the country was so great that even though it enhanced the credit of William Pitt it must be welcomed. I think those sentiments are probably reflected in the feelings of the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gaitskell) today. That is perhaps how he feels about my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.
I think both of us agree that the Finance Bill is the principal instrument by which the Government carry out their economic planning. It is its job to see that there is a balance between the demand for goods and the supply of them so that we do not get either a glut with all the unemployment and poverty which inevitably follow or an inflation, which could so entirely dislocate the economy of the country.
This Government has a very much harder job in these days than any Government has had before. Before 1914, our resources abroad were so enormous that we were able for each of the five years preceding 1914 to invest abroad £200 million and to invest at home a further £150 million—vast sums when we think what prices were in those days. After the war we were assured of our necessary raw materials by gifts and loans from the United States and elsewhere. Now we can only get those raw materials which are absolutely essential to us by earning them abroad—

Mr. Speaker: I would remind the House that we are now on the Third Reading of the Bill, and these wider economic considerations, though of great interest, are out of place on the Third Reading.

Mr. Spearman: With all respect, Mr. Speaker, I thought that one of the principal themes of the Finance Bill related to how we can expand our exports. I was, therefore, coming to some tentative criticisms of the Finance Bill inasmuch as it did that. I was going to say that last year we had a substantial balance of, I think, just under £300 million, but that that was to a considerable extent composed of aid and the economy in financing stocks in the pipeline due to the reduced price of imports.
I think that the best authority which I can quote as to how successful the Finance Bill is in achieving its object during the current year is the "Bulletin for Industry," which says:
It will not be known with any precision until later how the United Kingdom current account has been progressing this year, but the latest figures leave no doubt that more exports are needed and that they will be difficult to get.
I am inclined to guess that at present we are running only about level, and I think that that gives cause for anxiety whether this Finance Bill has been as stern in restricting consumption as is necessary in the present circumstances. Imports are now higher than they have ever been in this country before, except for a brief period during the third quarter of 1951. Our exports are not showing that buoyancy that we all want them to have and which we hope this Finance Bill will bring about. Mr. Speaker, if it is out of order to talk about exports and imports, I shall find it hard to make my speech. May I take it that that is your ruling, Sir?

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry to have that effect upon the hon. Member, but on the Third Reading of a Bill we are confined to what is in the Bill. If the hon. Member finds something in the Bill which enables him to make the sort of observation he desires on exports and imports, that will be in order. I find myself in some difficulty in connecting what the hon. Member has been saying with what is in the Bill.

Mr. Spearman: Then I must cut out a great deal of what I was going to say, and merely say this. I think it is absolutely vital that either we should increase our income by selling more abroad or decrease our expenditure by spending less at home. It certainly would not be in order on the Third Reading to make constructive suggestions how that should be carried out, but we did have a long discussion on Clause 34, so I think I would not be out of order in referring to the monetary weapon. That was most effective last year, but I suggest to my right hon. Friend that he should make more use of that at the present time.
I am not suggesting that my right hon. Friend should raise the Bank rate. I think that might be necessary at a later date, but I suggest that he should instruct the banks to reduce the amount of credit available, because in that way I believe he will discourage manufacturers from unnecessarily stocking up and I believe, also, that it is the most effective way of sifting the sort of investment that we have. I know that the right hon. Member for Leeds, South believes it would be far better to do it by direction, but I suggest that the sifting of a high interest rate is a more effective weapon than for the Government to plan what they think best; certainly, Government plans for investment have proved singularly ineffective in recent years. But the monetary weapon must not bear too great a responsibility, and it is vital to have a reduction of expenditure.
This is obviously not an occasion on which I can expand on what expenditure can best be cut, but I would say that there is almost nothing which would not be worthwhile sacrificing rather than running into a crisis of such a kind that we should have heavy unemployment. I do not predict that a crisis is certain to come, or that it is imminent, but I do say that there is a danger of a balance of payments crisis, and indeed I think my right hon. Friend in his speeches has continually shown that though he is very naturally gratified, he is certainly not satisfied with the present situation. I believe that the present rate of imports, which is rising so fast, can only be justified if we have the confidence of selling more abroad, which does not seem to me to be altogether reasonable today.
Hon. Members, wherever they sit in this House, if they are sensible people—

and in spite of anything that may be said of us I think that most of are fairly sensible—tend to magnify their differences when they talk in the Chamber, to an extent which is out of all proportion to what those differences are when they discuss them outside in that good fellowship which is absolutely vital if Parliamentary government is to prosper. It can be of no consolation to any party if we should ever have a really disastrous crisis. It cannot be a consolation that one party is embarrassed to anyone in any party that has the nation's interest at heart.
The Government can precipitate a crisis by extravagance, or by not taking the proper measures but I believe there is a limit to what the Government can do by legislation or by administration. It is only with the co-operation of the whole country that we can face the enormous difficulties involved in maintaining the present standard of living, when we consider how dependent we are on imports.
Wherever we sit in this House—on one side or the other; on the Front Bench or on the back benches—between us, we represent the whole country. It is our job to be in touch with our constituents and, as best we can, to give them a lead, which some do in a big way and others of us in only a very small way. So the question of our balance of payments and our prosperity is the responsibility of us all. If the risk of difficulties ahead is not probable, it is at any rate appreciable, and the steps that could be taken with comparative ease today might be taken only with intolerable difficulty a year ahead.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: I am sure that we all sympathise with the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Spearman), in his attempt to keep his remarks within the rules of order on the Third Reading of this Bill. I do, at any rate, because I had a similar difficulty a year or two ago. At some time or other—and whether or not this is a suitable moment is a matter of opinion—we shall want to see whether the Bill and its proposals are achieving the purpose which the Chancellor hoped for when he introduced the Budget three months ago.
The key word of his speech was "boost". He said that he wanted to give the whole nation a boost and provide that incentive, encouragement and enthusiasm which we all realise is indispensable to the economic progress we all desire to make. A little later in the year it may be more suitable to have a stocktaking in order to see how the nation is doing, after we have had an opportunity of putting these proposals to a little longer test. The great number of "Pay-As-You-Earners" had that boost only a week or two ago, when they had their tax holiday—the accumulative reliefs which date back from the beginning of the financial year.
The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby said he thought we tended to magnify our differences in this House. That may be so. I notice that the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) has been writing on a similar theme in the "Observer," over the weekend. But this is the debating Chamber of our Parliament. This is where everything has to be raised to a political level, where differences must be sharpened so that people shall know them for what they are, and where we have to have the clash of opinion between honest and sincere men and women that is the very foundation of our system of Parliamentary government.
It is from the course of debates and the replies to speeches and criticisms that the public put things in what they conceive to be the right proportion, and I do not think that we are doing any disservice to the cause to which we all subscribe. We are all anxious that the country shall recover from its economic difficulties, and that a period of stability and prosperity shall be achieved, though we have different methods of approach to the problem and different remedies for it.
When the hon. Member reproached my hon. and learned Friend, the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) for not having paid a tribute to the Chancellor, I wondered why it should be necessary, having regard to the earlier part of the speech of the Financial Secretary, who, quite evidently, thinks that his right hon. Friend is "the cat's whiskers." The opening part of his speech was a long testimonial to his right hon. Friend. I fully expected him to begin by saying,

"Mr. Speaker, to whom it may concern, I certify that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has now introduced two Finance Bills," and so on, and continue his fulsome praise of his right hon. Friend.
He said, "Here is my right hon. Friend, the great Finance Bill slimmer; the great anti-inflationist." He claimed credit for much to which his right hon. Friend is not entitled, and it seemed to me that when he referred to the repeal of the Excess Profits Levy he might have indulged in a few reflections on what happened last year. What has happened to the pledge of the Prime Minister, who said that this special form of taxation should be levied or the fortuitous profits of the rearmament period? Last year we had this elaborate superstructure of the Excess Profits Levy, which was intended to carry out that pledge. I would describe the levy as a fiscal Coronation stand.

Major Sir Guy Lloyd: On a point of order. Is it in order to refer to an excess profits tax in any way, seeing that it is not in the Bill?

Mr. Mitchison: Am I wrong in thinking that Clause 27 of the Bill deals with the termination and amendment of the Excess Profits Levy?

Mr. G. R. Howard: Does not Clause 27 deal with the offensive question of the Isles of Scilly?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): We are not discussing the Isles of Scilly at the moment. The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) is quite in order.

Mr. Houghton: This Bill proposes to discontinue the Excess Profits Levy at the end of this year. Last year it was written into the Finance Bill at great length and with great complexity. Presumably the pledge to tax the fortuitous profits of the rearmament period has now been fulfilled. It did not last very long and it has now been brought to an end. Not only is the Excess Profits Levy to be withdrawn but the Profits Tax is to remain undisturbed—and the Profits Tax was adjusted last year to the introduction of the Excess Profits Levy.
But the matter goes even further, because this Bill proposes to reduce the


standard rate of Income Tax by 6d. in the £. Last year, the Excess Profits Levy was introduced to tax the fortuitous profits of the rearmament period, but within 12 months we have a Bill which proposes to dismantle that E.P.L., to leave the adjusted Profits Tax where it is and to reduce the standard rate of Income Tax to 6d. in the £. That seems a strange way of taxing the fortuitous profits of the rearmament period—a period which is still with us for, as I said at an earlier stage in the debates on this Bill, this year the whole of the proceeds from Income Tax will go to meet the cost of rearmament. We are thus still in a period of very heavy expenditure on armaments.
The Financial Secretary referred with some pride to the concessions made in respect of the dependent daughter and of apprentices, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer completely overlooked the dependent daughter—she was the Cinderella of his proposals—when he introduced the Bill. It needed a reminder from these benches that the small allowance of £25 a year to the father who relied upon the services of a dependent daughter had remained untouched for something like 25 years. The Chancellor could find no escape from accepting Amendments moved from these benches to increase that allowance from the modest sum of £25 to the almost modest sum of £40.
What is the story about the apprentices? Last year we hammered on the question of the earnings of apprentices under the rules for child allowances, with the result that the meagre limit of £13 was raised to £26. On further consideration, the right hon. Gentleman now proposes to increase it to £52. Of course, we must not exaggerate either the effect or the cost of these two concessions. I do not think the cost was mentioned earlier, but it is unlikely to be very great, because when I proposed that the age of a single woman or widow for the purposes of age relief should be reduced from 65 to 60, that proposal was rejected by the Economic Secretary on the ground that it would cost £2 million or £3 million.
I can only conclude that the two concessions for which the Financial Secretary gave no credit to my hon. Friends were not giving very much away. Nevertheless, we are glad to see both these concessions

and we certainly think that the position of the apprentices will have to be further considered in relation to the whole scope of child allowances.
That brings me to the sort of cloud which hangs over all proposals for Income Tax changes and reliefs at present—the Royal Commission, which has been such a constant standby to right hon. and hon. Members opposite when we have been making proposals for concessions or alterations in the rules affecting Income Tax charges or reliefs. The right hon. Gentleman may have kept the Finance Bill within these small proportions this year, but I wonder what will happen when he has before him the report of the Royal Commission. Will he then be able to keep the Bill within such small proportions?
I do not know whether it is an appropriate suggestion to make, but the time may be suitable, when the Royal Commission reports, for a sub-division of our legislation between the taxing Clauses of the Finance Bill and the administrative Clauses of the Finance Bill. There might be a case for reverting, if only temporarily, to a very old idea of the Taxes Management Act, so that we may be able to discuss much about administration which the Royal Commission will undoubtedly recommend and which it may be inconvenient to include with many other things at the time of the Finance Bill.
In the course of reminiscences by permanent civil servants, I have heard that very frequently quite justifiable and, indeed, quite urgent matters are pushed out of the Finance Bill at the last moment, or even at the first moment, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer must necessarily keep the Bill within the scope of reasonable Parliamentary time. It may assist if many changes which we put on the Order Paper, and others which may follow as a result of the report of the Royal Commission, can be debated at a time separate from the Parliamentary time for the Finance Bill itself, when there is always considerable pressure. I throw out that suggestion in a helpful and cooperative spirit, as the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby would wish, because I think it may be for the convenience of both sides of the House.
The Financial Secretary referred more than once to the burden of taxation, and there is no right hon. or hon. Member in


this House who can put so much weight and feeling into the word "burden." It gives the impression that there is something crushing, something bearing down upon us, something from which the whole nation is struggling to free itself. I think that occasionally we ought to pause and ask ourselves what we are taxing for. All those who have the benefits of the National Health Service must realise that taxation pays for it. All those who have the benefit of family allowances must realise that the money comes from taxation.
If it is the will of the nation not only to have national security in the form of adequate defences but also, as I am sure it is, a very wide range of social services and a very high degree of social security, then, quite obviously, taxation must be heavy. I think it is a mistake in such circumstances to go on repeating the word "burden" in relation to taxation when, in a large measure, it is really a redistribution of the national income in accordance with the will of the nation so as to give our people a better standard of life, to succour the aged and the sick and to see that our children are properly cared for, well fed, properly clothed, well educated and equipped for the tasks of life. If we could get our taxation into a proper perspective, I think we should hear less of the word "burden."
My life has been spent either in or alongside the system of direct taxation. There used to be an old Radical and Socialist doctrine that direct taxation adjusted to ability to pay was the fairest method of getting the revenue required. It took into account not only the income but the family and domestic circumstances of the taxpayer. There is no doubt that our Income Tax system is very finely adjusted indeed to the variations of domestic responsibilities and to income and charges on income. Here, in this Bill, we are giving further concessions, introducing further refinements to make our Income Tax system more equitable.
But we see what troubles we have with other taxes, the Purchase Tax, the Entertainments Duty, when industries complain that taxation is frustrating their efforts towards recovery, that it operates unfairly as between one branch of industry and another. I really do believe

the relationship between direct and indirect taxation is one which needs much closer study. I fully appreciate that the Chancellor's problem this year was that even if he had wished to go further in reducing the Purchase Tax he was bound to take account of the problem of taxed stocks, of which we have heard a great deal in our debates; but, certainly, I think there is a moral in all the debates we have had on this year's Bill and also last year's, and it is that, on the whole, it is better to give reliefs to indirect taxation rather than direct taxation if we are trying to maintain an equitable system of taxation in these difficult times.
I want to conclude with a reference to the long debates we have had on the question of avoidance, expenses, allowances, and the like. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering said, because of the rules of order we had to put on the Notice Paper Amendments to the Bill which were unsatisfactory from our point of view and were obviously open to serious criticism from the benches opposite, but that was the only way we could provide a peg on which to hang a discussion of what is undoubtedly a very important matter, and one which has an effect on the minds of people outside, who are led to believe that taxation should be doing a certain job, which quite visibly in many ways it is failing to do.

Questions are asked, "If taxation is as heavy as they say how is it that people can do this and that? How is it they can throw a party which costs, we are told in the gossip columns, £5,000? Why has not Income Tax and Surtax taken away this surplus money which is being spent in riotous living?" Those are questions that are asked by ordinary working folk. Quite naturally, any matter which is engaging their minds in that way is a fit and serious subject for discussion in this House.

I agree with the Financial Secretary when he says that through close administration many remedies of these avoidances and leakages can be found. The Inland Revenue Department is not as yet properly equipped to deal with the mounting pace and detail of attempts to avoid tax. After all, if one can get a bit of tax free income it is worth a great deal more than the equivalent amount of taxed income. That is what is at the root of


this problem. Everybody, not only directors of companies but workers as well, those who have a five-day week and work on Saturday mornings for rewards that are not taxed—everybody is seeking to see whether he can get some form of untaxed income, untaxed money or services.

It is very important, in considering this Bill, that we should ask ourselves whether it contains the necessary remedies through administration or safeguards to prevent this kind of abuse going on. I trust, therefore, that when we consider the financial proposals another year we may have before us the recommendations of the Royal Commission, which will undoubtedly, I should say, have something to say about all this, and a notable omission from this Bill may then be remedied.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We cannot discuss the Royal Commission now, but only what is in the Bill.

Mr. Houghton: I am in just the same difficulty as was the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby. He took the opportunity of bringing his speech to a rather speedy conclusion after he was ruled out of order. I propose to do the same, but I do wish to stress the fact that until there is closer administration or until there are additional statutory powers put into the hands of the Administration there will be a great deal about the administration of our Income Tax system which will give rise to serious questioning and a good deal of discontent. This Bill does not provide for that, and I hope that on another occasion we may discuss a Bill that does.

4.57 p.m.

Mr. Ralph Assheton: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) in a debate on finance, because he knows a great deal about taxation and he looks at the problems of taxation with the eye of an expert. I have only a few remarks to make today. Before I make them, I should like to take the opportunity, if I may, of congratulating the Chancellor on the skill with which he steered this Bill through the Committee stage, and of congratulating the Financial Secretary and the Economic Secretary on the help which they gave to the Committee and to him.
In spite of some welcome reductions in taxation, taxation is still at a very high

level. I do not think anybody can deny that we are still spending too much and still collecting too much revenue. There is an extremely interesting article to which I should like to refer in this month's edition of "Lloyd's Bank Review." It is by Professor Tress, of Bristol University, and if there are any hon. Members who have not read that article I would advise them to do so. He refers to the weight of taxation, and it is interesting to see that the total revenue collected in this country in 1951 was 32 per cent. of the gross national product as against 17 per cent. before the war. Canada collected 24 per cent. as against 20 per cent. before the war. It shows how very markedly high is the level of our expenditure, higher, in fact, than that of any other country in the world.
If it is the case that our revenue is very high—and I am bound to admit that with such enormous expenditure our revenue has to be high—what Professor Tress suggests is that we look at the engine of finance, and he says:
The engine of public finance, though it works surprisingly well, has probably more affinities with the productions of Mr. Emmet than it has with those of Sir Frank Whittle.
What I want to suggest to the House today is that we want something more jet propelled than we have at the present time. We are working with an age old machine. Mind you, it is a very good machine at doing the job of collecting money. It collects an enormous amount of money with remarkable success, but for all that I think that the hon. Member for Sowerby will recognise that our methods are not yet perfect. We want a jet propelled machine. If we are to compete in the world I think that we must get some of our heavy taxes very much reduced. I think that the Chancellor has a great opportunity to reform our finances. A great Chancellor of the Exchequer of 100 years ago, whom my right hon. Friend much admires, Sir Robert Peel, made some great changes in our financial system, and I hope that the present Chancellor will do so, too.
The officials at the Board of Inland Revenue and the Board of Customs and Excise are, of course, bound to say, "Stick to the old taxes—an old tax is a good tax." I agree that there is a great deal of sense in that. Anyone who has had anything to do with designing a


new tax knows that very well. But, for all that, taxation appropriate in the days when I was born is not necessarily appropriate today. When I was born, in the early years of this century—the Chancellor of the Exchequer was also born in the early years of this century—Government expenditure in this country was £4 per head. Today, it is £86 per head. It is obvious that the methods used for collecting enough revenue when taxation was £4 a head are not necessarily the appropriate methods when expenditure is £86 per head.
The Income Tax to which the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) is so attached, and rightly so because it is the basis of OUT system—I am talking about Pay-as-you-earn, Income Tax and Surtax—is very high and the hon. Member for Sowerby has been telling us that there is a great deal of avoidance and that he hopes that there will be other methods designed to catch up on evasion. He told us that that avoidance ran all through the community. It is not only restricted to directors, as we sometimes hear from the other side of the House, but as the hon. Member said, one of the most common forms of avoidance of tax is by people who pay P.A.Y.E. and work at another job and do not pay tax on that work. There are numerous ways of avoiding tax.
We all know that it is going on and that it is not fair. Why has this happened? It has happened because the whole level of Income Tax is too high. While we have a level of Income Tax as high as it is, we are bound to get avoidance and evasion. I think that any Income Tax over 7s. or 7s. 6d. in the £ is much too high, and I think that any system of taxation which takes away as much as 19s. in the £ on some parts of a man's income is crazy. The very highest level, I should have thought, should be about 15s. Otherwise, we are limiting enterprise and the risks which people are willing to take with their money.
Another great objection to high Income Tax, pointed out by the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay), is that it does not take sufficient account of the responsibilities of the individual, as at present designed. He thinks—and I think that there is a great deal to be said for it—that the family

man pays too much in relation to the bachelor. There are all sorts of ways of looking at it. The right hon. Gentleman and I are both family men. Perhaps we take one view and bachelors take another view. There is no doubt that when the rate of taxation is so high it is more important to take account of the personal responsibilities of individuals.
To do that we have to make the whole thing too complicated. It is complicated enough already and every time we try to adjust Income Tax to the responsibilities of the individual, we add new complications, and every new complication makes it more and more difficult for the Board of Inland Revenue to administer the tax. When we look at the Finance Bill, we find that Income Tax, Profits Tax and Surtax take up a good deal of it and that Customs Tax and Purchase Tax take up practically all the rest.
Let us come to the other side of the machine for collecting taxes. I have never been a lover of Purchase Tax as we now have it. I have expressed my opinion about that more than once. If we look at the methods of other countries, I think that we may well find that they have advanced a good way beyond us in taxation of that sort. Our Purchase Tax is rather clumsy. If we look at Germany, Canada, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland or Norway, which all have various systems of taxation on commodities or turnover tax, I think that in some cases their systems are better adjusted to the needs of today than is our system here.
In Canada, for instance, there is a tax on sales, but it is sufficiently enlightened not to tax either food or clothing. I think that it would interest the House if I read a short comment by Professor Tress on that point. He criticises very fully all the objections to taxes on com-modies, indirect taxes of all sorts, and says:
A system of commodity taxes, in other words, takes on many of the characteristics of an income tax, but with two distinctive merits which have lately come to be very important. First, though the system can be made roughly progressive, as is, rather clumsily, the British Purchase Tax, and, more elegantly the Canadian general sales tax which exempts food and clothing—it does not involve a penal treatment of marginal earnings as does the income tax. Secondly, and more important, it allows savings to be exempted from taxation.


Any system of taxation which bases its collection of revenue purely on what a man earns militates against saving, whereas a system which takes heed of what he spends works in favour of saving. That is a point which is not always fully appreciated. We shall have heavy taxation in this country for the rest of our lifetime, and the hon. Member for Sowerby mentioned, quite rightly, many of the things which we need to spend money on and for which taxes have to be raised. I think that all taxation is bad, and I am sure that all Members of this House think so, too, but defeat by an enemy, poverty, ignorance and crime are all worse, and we have to deal with them and raise a great deal of revenue to do so.
My plea to the Chancellor today is to look at the whole system of taxation afresh, not to be too much governed by what we have done in the past, to remember that it is easier to raise taxes when we want £4 per head instead of £86 per head and not to be inhibited from looking at new systems and methods of taxation because, although that may be difficult at the start, there may come a time when we shall recognise that it has been a good thing to make a change.

5.8 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Mulley: I hope that the right hon. Member for Blackburn, West (Mr. Assheton) will forgive me if I do not follow him very far in his arguments because I have not his aptitude for skating on thin ice, and it has been my unfortunate experience in the past to follow a number of hon. Gentlemen who have had a little dispute with the Chair and, in endeavouring to follow up their arguments, I have incurred the Chair's most serious displeasure.
I also hope that the right hon. Gentleman for Blackburn, West will excuse me if I do not follow on his argument. I hope I have my topography right as I believe that there is nowhere in the country where west and east are so far apart as in Blackburn. Concerning his remarks about Purchase Tax, it appears that an armed truce might be arrived at on this subject. I shall be interested to learn how this coalition between east and west develops. I thought that it was the general view of the right hon. Member

that taxation got money out of the taxpayer rather too quietly at the present time, and I was surprised that he suggested that speedier ways of extracting money from the taxpayer might be looked at by the Chancellor.
One cannot talk about the taxation side of the national income and expenditure account without thinking of the expenditure side. I shall not pursue that line of argument, but anyone can get up anywhere and say that they are against high taxation and that they think taxes are iniquitous, because none of us really likes paying taxes at all. However, I would remind hon. Gentlemen opposite that, despite the present high rates of taxation, there are many people in the country who would like the opportunity of paying Income Tax and many would like the opportunity of paying a little more Income Tax by virtue of having higher incomes. I hope that before we have much more nonsense talked about high taxation this point will be borne in mind.
I am sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has left us for the moment. I was about to congratulate him on having reached the last stages of what I regard as a very romantic Finance Bill. I say "romantic" for two reasons; first, because it was designed to woo the electors, and, second, in the French sense, because, as a distinguished Frenchman once said, only English people can be romantic because they have not the logic to follow their romance to its logical conclusion. This is a romantic Finance Bill because, on many issues, the Chancellor has not followed his romance to its logical conclusion.
Since we have already had some testimonials, it is only right and proper that I should pay a testimonial to the Financial Secretary. We know that the Chancellor has been busy in other directions and that it has fallen to the Financial Secretary to conduct a good deal of the detailed discussion in Committee. I should like to pay him a sincere compliment upon his contributions. We have often been very disappointed about the content of his speeches, but we have derived very much pleasure from their form. It is a long time in the history of our finance debates since "No" has been said with such eloquence, such elegant language and such polished periods.
Not since the days of the great Mr. Gladstone himself have we had such a magnificent "no" presented with such consistency from the Dispatch Box. In many a dull moment during the Committee stage—let us be frank, there were dull moments—we were often enlivened by the speculation, when the Financial Secretary entered a particularly complicated sentence, whether he would marry the right noun with the right verb. As far as my recollection serves me, he did so every time. While we hope that the Financial Secretary will continue to emulate the late Mr. Gladstone's use of language in our debates, I hope he will also acquire some of the great ex-Chancellor's financial and economic acumen.
Mr. Gladstone must have turned in his grave when he heard, if he did, this year's Budget, because never can a surplus have been frittered away more than this surplus has been by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. In case I should be subject to attack from one of my hon. Friends who made one or two hilarious interventions during the Committee stage, I should explain that I am not using "fritter away" in the sense in which it was used by a learned counsel of the Chancery Bar who referred on a certain occasion to an estate being frittered away on the beneficiaries when a lawsuit which was expected to last some months, to the great enrichment of the Bar, no doubt, was settled out of court on the first day.
I use "fritter away" in the Gladstonian sense that there has been no attempt to cut down the cost of administration of the taxes by ending one tax altogether rather than by taking little snippets and pieces from a great number of taxes. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the Clauses dealing with Purchase Tax. It would have been much more sensible to cut out Purchase Tax entirely in some cases—the Financial Secretary will appreciate that I should put knives, forks and spoons very high on such a list—and to leave it where it was, on, say, motor-cars and radio sets. I shall not develop this argument now, because we went into the subject at some length during the Committee stage, but I hope that I have at least convinced the Financial Secretary—I am not sure whether I have convinced the Economic Secretary—that knives, forks and spoons are necessities and not merely amenities. I hope that that is

now the official Treasury view and that, as a consequence, we can expect some action in that direction.
I must enter a reservation about the testimonial that I gave the Financial Secretary for his general conduct of the debate. It relates to his reply to the suggested reduction of Purchase Tax upon articles made by craftsmen, in particular those made by the silversmiths of Sheffield. He was not as convincing as he often is when he said it was not possible to make some discrimination.
I rate the Financial Secretary's intelligence high enough to know that he must have remained unconvinced by his own argument. Therefore, I hope that, under the powers contained in Clause 11, there will be some reconsideration of Purchase Tax as it affects the cutlery and the silver industries. I hope the Financial Secretary will re-read that speech. His speeches will stand re-reading. I often wonder whether it is his custom to read them in his bath in the mornings, and I wonder if he chuckles over some thrust of wit or congratulates himself upon the grammatical niceties of a full-page sentence.
I also thought that he was not at his best when he was dealing with the issue of sidecars on motor-cycles in relation to Clause 5. Having regard to the Treasury's great desire to consult, and to consult at great length, everybody and anybody on matters relating to the Income Tax law, I hope that between now and January, when the Clause has effect, the hon. Gentleman will have a word with the odd motor-cyclist or two he may meet when he is in his constituency, and with the appropriate motorcycling organisations, and pay a visit to the Road Research Department of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and get its views on this very important matter.
I do not want to go into greater detail about the Clauses, but it is appropriate to say a word about the effect of the Clauses together and their consequences on the economy. In particular, we were very surprised during the Committee stage to learn that the Government have no interest in the individual performance of various industries. We were told that the Government do not intend to use fiscal devices to further the economic interests of the country. It surprises us that the output and exports from the


motor car industry and the provision of building materials should be of such little interest to the Treasury under the control of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. Even at this late stage, I ask him to repudiate the very strange advice that the Economic Secretary gave the Committee on that occasion.
Some reference has already been made to profits and to the passing away of the Excess Profits Levy. Since I ventured to pay what I hope has been taken as a sincere tribute to the Financial Secretary upon his speeches in the debate, it is only right that I should say that I regard the reply of the Chancellor to the debate on that Clause as one of the masterpieces of Parliamentary debate. I would recommend any hon. Member who might be given that rather unenviable task of producing a pocket HANSARD in the future to make a note of that reply as an example of Parliamentary debate at its best.
It is only fair to say with what great sincerity the Chancellor of the Exchequer repeated the arguments that we brought last year against the Excess Profits Levy and threw them back at us. He did it with much greater eloquence than we can command, and that is why it is important that we should persuade the Treasury, because there seems to be a year's time lag between what we say on these benches and those views becoming the official point of view from the Government Benches.
Although we admired the Chancellor's reply we cannot be satisfied with its substance. Whether it was by accident or by design, the fact is that the Excess Profits Levy and Profits Tax showed a fall last year of £64 million as compared with the year before. The fall was from £379 million to £315 million, and when Clause 27 of this Bill becomes effective there will be a further drop of £100 million in the amount of revenue contributed from profits.
While, of course, hon. Gentlemen opposite may derive satisfaction from that, we do not see why so much relief should be given to industry and in this particular way, having regard to the general economic situation. We hope that the Chancellor may refer to this matter when he replies, and tell us what proposal he has in mind for increasing the Profits Tax, which was reduced to make way for

the Excess Profits Levy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said, this reduction in the total incidence of Profits Tax is an addition to the £45 million that the companies get as a result of the 6d. fall in the standard rate of Income Tax.
Some hon. Members opposite argue that the standard rate of Income Tax reduction is a way to encourage industry by producing an incentive, increasing investment and boosting our export trade. In reply, I would use the argument which they have used in the past—and will no doubt use in the future—against the principle of food subsidies. Relief by virtue of a reduction in the standard rate goes to companies that are not making a contribution to the national economy, to people who are draining labour away from more essential and productive purposes and to the stagnant companies as well as to those that are expanding.
The only difference between the argument I am now employing and the argument about the food subsidies is that the cost of the food subsidies to those who get them and do not need them is more than the subsidy itself, and helps to pay for the benefits to those who are in need of that particular kind of subsidy. I would ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to think about that as a fair comparison between the food subsidies, which I know they do not like, and the reduced standard rate of Income Tax in industry, which I know they approve.
Finally, I want to follow up the remark made by the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Spearman) at the beginning of the debate. How do these proposals compare with those of last year, and what are their consequences for our economy? The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby took a very apt illustration when he referred to what Charles James Fox remarked about a great victory. He said that he would applaud it although it meant giving credit to William Pitt. We on this side of the House are equally glad, that, temporarily at any rate, the balance of payments position is much easier. But I would say that the present Chancellor's contribution to its improvement is perhaps rather less than William Pitt's contribution to the winning of the Battle of Trafalgar. In the battle of the balance of payments the outstanding fact—the


Nelson—has been the favourable turn in the terms of trade.
I am sure that the Chancellor would be the first to say that he would not personally take for himself or for the Government full credit for the change in the balance of payments and the external payments position. We want to consolidate the improved international, economic position. Some of the criticism that we have brought against this Bill is directed to that end. We have made many suggestions at different stages of the Bill on Purchase Tax, initial allowances and so on, because we think that the object of the Finance Bill should be the increasing of our ability to compete abroad and planning the best use of our national resources.
I think it would be in order to make one final remark on the question of the cost of living, because the Financial Secretary, who, I know, is a master of the rules of order, did refer in his opening remarks to the contributions to the cost of living of this Budget, but he neglected to say by what percentage it would affect the Interim Index of Retail Prices. He referred to the fall in the price of the published Finance Bill this year as compared with last year, from 4s. to 1s. 3d., and I think it is particularly noteworthy because that is the most substantial fall in price that this Government have been able to achieve.
It is in the field of the cost of living that ordinary men and women expect something more than they have so far got. I appreciate that the Financial Secretary did not wish to make a very strong point of the slimness of the Bill as compared with last year, but I would remind him that the ordinary man and woman has to think whether he or she can afford 1½d. for an evening paper—[Laughter.] A number of families in my constituency have had to give up either their morning or evening paper and have entered into a pooling arrangement with neighbours because the cost of living has hit them so very hard.
To put this Budget in perspective, the £64 million which has been dropped in Profits Tax this year would be just about the figure to give the old age pensioners another 6s. per week. We hope that

when these matters come to be considered further and greater attention will be paid to those whose needs are very real indeed. We know that the Chancellor possesses undoubted political wisdom, and I hope that next year, when he opens his Budget, it will be tempered with a little more social justice than it was this year.

5.28 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Howard: I am sure that my hon. Friends would wish to agree with the hon. Member for Park (Mr. Mulley) in paying well-deserved compliments to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, and to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. In general, I should like to do the same, but, in particular, I fear there is one point on which it is impossible for me to congratulate either of them. I would have hesitated to intervene once again at this late stage but for the fact that today I received a letter from one who is extremely highly versed in tax matters and has had very considerable experience of the Isles of Scilly.
His first point is that the mechanics of this collection are going to be extremely difficult. The Tax Commissioners may call a meeting of appellants at a certain time that may be agreed to by the people on the Islands, but then it is possible that the weather may deteriorate thereby isolating the people on the off Islands, who may not be able to get to St. Mary's for anything up to a week. I suppose the Commissioners would have to stay over there waiting for these people to come or they would have to make another trip which we would have to pay for.
As my correspondent says in this letter:
The Revenue little realise what a rod for their own backs they are about to make in respect of the P.A.Y.E. aspect of the matter.
And the average collection, I believe, will be very small; also, the problem will be a very confused one.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will correct an extremely unfortunate impression going about in West Cornwall which was made when he said that certain representations had been made by the flower growers on the mainland. To quote again from this letter:
I do deplore the apparent pursuit of a scapegoat which recent editions of 'The Cornish-man' have revealed. It seems to me so silly


and so damaging to the interests of the communities both on the Mainland and the Islands to suggest that any particular person or bodies of persons are directly responsible for the taxation proposals which have so suddenly appeared. I do wish that it were in your power to publish in 'The Cornishman' and the 'Western Morning News' an authoritative denial, with the consent of Mr. Butler, that he has in no way been influenced by representations from any local quarters. I am quite sure personally that that would constitute a statement of fact, but some readers of our local Press must be feeling bewildered.
As my right hon. Friend already knows, responsible opinion speaking for those local growers has already denied that they made any representations so it is important to correct that impression.
The next point is the question of the steamer. As the writer says:
The Steamship Company position, of course, will be a difficult one until they get their new Boat unless Mr. Butler can persuade the House "—
it falls to my unfortunate lot to try to persuade the House—
to leave their taxation basis as it is until, at any rate the new Ship arrives. I much fear that the taxation will dry up a lot of the money which otherwise the Company might have received from the inhabitants towards the necessary provision of fresh Share Capital which will be wanted.
I asked during the Committee stage whether the collection would be worth while, and I have given additional facts and figures to my right hon. Friend which I hope may persuade him that it is not so worth while as he thought at first. I am given to understand that those outside the P.A.Y.E. payments who may be assessed for tax will be less than 100. At this late hour, therefore, I want to suggest the following points, bearing in mind what my hon. Friend said in his eloquent and polished English at the opening of this debate, that this Budget is calculated to take into account the human problem. I hope it is not too late for my right hon. Friend to take into account the human problem in the case of the Isles of Scilly.
My hon. Friend also made great play with the word "burden." I therefore ask the Chancellor to do four things. First, could he consider some form of delay so that these people can get used to the idea of taxation? [Laughter.] It may seem a strange idea to hon. Members who laugh, but to the islanders it will mean the full burden in one go, whereas

other people have had quite a period of years in which to get used to it. There is also this point, which is by no means a laughing matter to the people concerned. The small grower who has budgeted for certain automatic equipment to help him in the cultivation of his land on the assumption that he would not pay tax will find his calculations upset when suddenly faced with taxation. Delay would greatly facilitate the operation of the new scheme.
Secondly, if there cannot be delay, will my right hon. Friend consider special treatment for the steamer, because I must emphasise that this steamer has been paid for and maintained by the people themselves, with no question of a subsidy, unlike other heavily subsidised services mentioned during the Committee stage. Thirdly, could some consideration be given to raising the basic rate below which tax is not payable, bearing in mind the special tax on living in these islands?
Finally, could the Chancellor consider these matters on the spot? It would be most valuable if he, or one of his secretaries, could meet the islanders. Contrary to what many hon. Members may think, I guarantee that he would have a good time. Though he might get a certain amount of straight talk, he would get first-hand information, which some of us think is rather more important than Whitehall information, which I fear at times may be rather misleading and not altogether accurate. If, as a result of these suggestions or this visit, he could consider during the next year whether his action is altogether just and fair as well as logical, he might be able to make adjustments so that the way of life and the economy of those islands may not be upset.

5.39 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Crosland: The hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) has spoken of the bewilderment which the action of the Chancellor has caused in the Scilly Islands. The hon. Gentleman has not only proved his case but demonstrated the superior intelligence of the Scilly islanders over the mainland population, because I can assure him that the actions of the Chancellor will cause increasing bewilderment, starting from the Scilly Islands and gradually spreading over all this country.
There can have been few occasions when a Budget and a Budget speech have met with such adulatory speeches and such an adulatory reception from hon. Members opposite. We have had speech after speech, both today, on Second Reading and throughout the Committee stage, referring to this wonderful Budget representing a completely new departure in our financial affairs. The Chancellor has been portrayed again and again as a vast, benign, omniscient, father-figure with his finger on the pulse of the nation's life, being consistently sensitive to the human element, and so on.
If we analyse the cause of all this extraordinary adulation of the Chancellor from his own side of the House, it lies partly in the secret of his personality and the speeches he has made but, so far as the Budget is concerned, it lies in one single act and one act alone. It is that this Budget, in contrast to most of its predecessors, introduces a substantial net decrease in taxation. It is for this that the Chancellor and the Treasury bench have taken so much credit.
I should like to repeat what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) referred to earlier and to insist that the taxes which the Chancellor has felt himself able to remit in this Budget were almost all imposed with one purpose alone in mind, to pay for a swift three-year rearmament programme. The 6d. on the Income Tax which has been taken off was imposed by my right hon. Friend when he was Chancellor to pay for rearmament in 1951. The Excess Profits Levy, the abolition of which is now foreshadowed, was imposed for one reason only, rearmament. A large number of the Purchase Tax reductions now being made are also reductions against increases imposed in 1951 for one purpose alone, rearmament.
The reason why the Chancellor is able to make these substantial remissions is simply the decision, no doubt a wise one, to spread the rearmament programme over a greater number of years than was envisaged initially. Any Labour Chancellor, representing a Government which had taken a similar decision about rearmament, would also this year have been in a position to make remissions of taxation to an equivalent extent. So that the fact that the Budget reduces

taxation, unlike most of its predecessors, is not a fact for which the Chancellor can take any credit. It is a fact which follows inevitably from the decision about the length and speed of the rearmament programme.
That is not to say that because we on this side accept that cuts in taxation this year are possible and are justified, we approve of the particular cuts that have been made. This point has been made again and again from this side of the House, and I shall not go into it again myself, but the fact that we object—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams) has not been here very much during the last month, but that does not stop him interrupting from time to time. Nevertheless—

Sir Herbert Williams: rose—

Mr. Crosland: May I finish this?

Sir H. Williams: Certainly.

Mr. Crosland: The point has been consistently and ably made again and again from this side of the House that, given the fact that this degree of tax remission was possible, we on this side would have preferred it to have been made in a very different way.

Sir H. Williams: I thought the hon. Member would have been pleased that he had succeeded in attracting rather more Conservative listeners than listeners on his own side of the House, who seem very bored.

Mr. Crosland: No doubt, if the hon. Member speaks later, he will not bore the House, but whether he will instruct them is a rather different question.
In connection with the question of the level of taxation as a whole, I should like to refer to one very interesting matter about which the right hon. Member for Blackburn, West (Mr. Assheton) has spoken. It was alarming to us to find once again, even on the last day of the Finance Bill debates, a divergence opening out between the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Member for Blackburn, West said this afternoon, in the course of an interesting speech—I apologise for having missed its first few minutes—that since we should


be faced for as far ahead as we could see with a very serious tax burden, it was only sensible for us to look around and see whether we could not find new methods of taxation which would have less damaging effects than, in his view, our existing methods have.
One of the suggestions which the right hon. Gentleman made in this connection, and which interested me very much, was a change in the basis of assessment from income to expenditure. Why I was interested to hear him throw this out as a possibility is because, as he well knows, it is a suggestion that has been constantly made in the history of fiscal discussions in this country. Speaking from memory, it was first put forward, I believe, by John Stuart Mill, and has been made both in evidence to various committees on taxation and by a number of independent fiscal experts.
We had a debate only two months ago as to whether this proposal should be considered by the present Royal Commission on Taxation. I am sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a ruling, which we on this side challenged, although without success, that this particular form of taxation could not be considered by the Royal Commission. I hope that if the right hon. Member for Blackburn, West has any influence with his right hon. Friend, he might persuade him to reverse that ruling, so that this extremely important suggestion might, at any rate, be considered. Whether it is a good one or a bad one, I have no idea, but I am certain that it is an important one.
The main point which I wish again briefly to bring to the attention of the House is one which has been mentioned several times during recent days from this side of the House but which is so important that it will bear reiteration. That is, the extremely alarming trend of the movement of labour at the present time, which throws doubt on the basic assumption on which the Budget was based. It is extremely disturbing to find that month after month since the beginning of the year, labour has been moving out of the engineering and metal manufacturing industries and into the service industries, the distributive trades and such like occupations. [An HON. MEMBER: "And into the mines."] Not in the coal mines in any substantial numbers

during the last six months. It has been only on a very small scale.
This movement of labour is the reverse of what, presumably, the Chancellor wants. It is certainly the reverse of the movement which we on this side of the House desire to see. It means that the present trend of our economic affairs, so far as the movement of labour is concerned, is completely in the wrong direction. I implore the Chancellor of the Exchequer very seriously to bear this fact in mind and to use whatever influence he has on economic policy between this year's Budget and the next to correct this tendency.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury, whose speeches have already been deservedly praised for their grammatical distinction by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), said at the end of his speech this afternoon that this year's Budget marked a not unimportant milestone on the way to some desirable goal, the location of which for the moment I forget. What a "not unimportant milestone" is, I cannot imagine. The common sense attitude to milestones is that one milestone must by definition be exactly as important as another. Nevertheless, assuming that one can speak of some milestones as being more important than other milestones, apparently this Budget is a not unimportant milestone on the road to somewhere.
We on this side think, on the contrary, that this Budget is a distinctly important milestone in a direction which disturbs us very much. At any rate, I conclude with the hope that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces his Budget next year, he will not try to intensify the speed with which he is moving in the present direction but will consider the very important necessity of a change in direction altogether.

5.51 p.m.

Major W. J. Anstruther-Gray: When my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury opened the debate this afternoon with an admirable speech, he said that all and more than all had been said already about the Budget. In spite of that, however, we have heard a good many more words today, starting with the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), who made one suggestion which appeals to me. The hon.


and learned Member referred to fuel saving appliances and said that there was room for budgetary concessions in order to promote the development of such economic appliances. I reinforce that suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, especially in view of the announcement at Question time today that we must revert once again to the unhappy practice of buying coal from overseas.
I think it would be true to say that in the country as a whole, this year's Budget will be remembered as the Budget in which, with deference to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard), who represents the Isles of Scilly, nobody has been taxed any more and everybody has been relieved. This is the first time in about 15 years that anyone can say such a thing of a Budget introduced into this House.
The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) talked about "boost." It is a very good thing to give people a boost, and if we can cheer up the country, so much the better. The combined effect of taking 6d. off the Income Tax and also reducing the Purchase Tax by 25 per cent. had a very encouraging effect upon everybody in every walk of life. That view may be taken whether one regards the Budget as a single entity or, as I prefer to hope that it may be, as one of a series of like Budgets continuing in the same good way from this year to next and, perhaps, the following year too.
These two concessions which the Budget makes are steps towards meeting the two big problems that worry the country today. Those problems are how to increase production, and how to check the rise in the cost of living. The reduction in taxation will undoubtedly have the effect of making firms and individuals more enterprising. When attention is drawn to the fact that the lower-scale wage earners are already so free of direct taxation that they will not derive much benefit from the reduction of 6d. in the Income Tax, I remind the House that there are also the middle and higher scales of wage earners, who are all human beings, and that a little bit of incentive has a very good effect upon everybody. I believe the result of the

sixpenny reduction will be a noteworthy increase in production.
I consider that the 25 per cent. cut in Purchase Tax will go towards checking the rise in the cost of living, which I regard as one of the key problems of the day. It may be more, it may be the key problem of a decade. The rise in the cost of living is at the root of the great danger to our competitive capacity in world markets. The rise is responsible for all the many wage claims that are threatening our costs of production figures. The iron and steel workers have put forward a claim. We know how dangerous is the position for shipbuilding on the Clyde.
Now the railwaymen have a claim in. All this is based on the rise in the cost of living, and of course it goes to increase the rise in the cost of transport and everything. I feel that the Chancellor, in cutting Purchase Tax by 25 per cent., is taking a deliberate step which, however far it goes—we hope that next year it will go further—is certainly aimed at stopping the rise in the cost of living.
Turning from basic points to a comparatively small one—the taxation of cinemas—following the Budget debates in the last few weeks it seemed to me that the case for a reduction was made most strongly and was the case which the Chancellor found it, in his heart, most difficult to meet. I readily appreciate that the arguments the Chancellor deployed in that debate—especially if I may read one or two of his words—was that in so far as the Exchequer preys on an industry, it does not prey on the cinema industry more than on some others. I wish to quote one or two figures for the benefit of the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), who is not here at the moment, and who talked in derisory terms about our complaints of the burden of taxation.
Let us take the case of beer. The average price of a pint is 1s. 4d. and the average duty is 8½ d., so there we have a 53 per cent. tax. The price of a packet of cigarettes is 3s. 7d. and the public may like to know that the duty is 2s. 9d., a percentage of 77. I do not smoke so that does not crush me, but I call that a crushing burden. A box of matches costs 2d., and the duty on a packet of a dozen boxes is 1s. 1d. I like the word which the Chancellor used when he called


that an "extortion" of 55 per cent. The cost of petrol is 4s. 6d. per gallon, and the duty is 2s. 6d., which make a proportion of 55 per cent. If one requires figures to demonstrate how severe a burden of taxation the people of this country are suffering today, those figures provide it. If we desire encouragement towards economy in the public mind just consider how each of these affects each other.
I finish as I began. Even if I run the risk of being laughed at, like the Financial Secretary, for lavishing high praise on the Chancellor, I say that the Chancellor has done a really good bit of work for his country in the Budget which he has introduced, and I give him my sincere congratulations.

5.59 p.m.

Lieut-Colonel Marcos Lipton: I wish to draw attention to what I think is an exaggerated concession made by this Finance Bill. I call it exaggerated because, when I raised the matter with the Financial Secretary in the form of a Question a short time ago, he attached much more importance to it than should be attached to what I believe to be a paltry concession.
In Clause 10 of the Bill there is a provision which puts into effect paragraph 6 of the Second Schedule which exempts from Purchase Tax the London type of taxi-cab. Hitherto, Purchase Tax has been charged on those cabs at 66⅔ per cent., which raised the cash price of a new cab by £472 to £1,319 until the Chancellor announced in his Budget that he had decided to give complete exemption from Purchase Tax as from 15th April, 1953.
It was, unfortunately, not possible for me to take part in the Second Reading on the Finance Bill, but it happens that the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Crouch) said in the debate that taxi drivers would appreciate this announcement, which would enable them to earn a better living than they had been able to earn for some months past.
At this point HANSARD inserts the word "Interruption" in brackets, whereupon the hon. Member for Dorset, North went on to say—as I was the person responsible for this unspecified interruption—
The hon. and gallant Member for Brixton (Lieut-Colonel Lipton) seems very dissatisfied, but he has no real ground for complaint."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th April. 1953; Vol. 514, c. 111.]

I propose, in the few minutes I shall speak, to amplify the very sapient comment I made, which was recorded merely as "Interruption", but which, I think, substantiates the argument I am trying to put forward.
New taxi-cabs in London on which Purchase Tax has been paid since 1949 now represent 60 per cent. of the total of the London taxi-cab fleet, which at present amounts to 5,300. Sixty per cent. of the new cabs running on the streets of London today have been penalised by virtue of the fact that the people who have advanced the money for the purchase of those cabs have laid out capital for improving the service and only at this late stage has the Chancellor announced a concession. The Runciman Report, which investigated the service, made it quite clear that
under present economic and fiscal conditions, the decline in the number of cabs plying for hire is likely to continue until there ceases to be an effective taxi-cab service in London.
In the last two years the number of taxi-cabs plying for hire has declined from 6,800 to 5,300, a 25 per cent. reduction.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: On the Third Reading, we cannot go into detail on taxi-cabs.

Lieut-Colonel Lipton: I would point out, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that Clause 10 (1) puts into effect paragraph 6 of the Second Schedule which exempts from Purchase Tax the London type of taxi-cab and I am addressing my comments to that particular provision of this Bill, the Third Reading of which we are discussing. I take it, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that we are entitled, on Third Reading, to criticise what appears in the Bill and I am trying to stress the inadequacy of the concession contained in the Bill.
The Chancellor said little in explanation of this concession and it may well be that hon. Members, as well as the general public, have gained the impression that the relief provided will be of great benefit to the trade, and that taxi-cab owners and drivers are grateful for this concession. I argue that it is a paltry concession because on 23rd April, in reply to a Question from me, the Financial Secretary announced that the sales of new cabs had virtually ceased. In the year ending 31st March last Purchase Tax was paid on only 47 new cabs


compared with 698 and 960 respectively in the two preceding years. The value of the concession is, therefore, the Purchase tax which would have been paid on 40 or 50 new cabs and which would amount to about £22,000
This concession has no value to those interested in providing a reasonably good taxi service in London. Cab owners who have paid Purchase Tax receive no relief, and it is not surprising that they complain of the bad treatment they have received at the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is true that the complete withdrawal of the Purchase Tax will represent a saving of ½d. a mile, but it will not affect 60 per cent. of the cabs now operating. We are in the lamentable position that, notwithstanding this concession, London is the only capital city in the world where the taxi-cab service cannot pay its way, largely due to the inadequate and tardy consideration of the problem by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Not only is the problem one about which taxi-cab owners have strong views, but the cab section of the Transport and General Workers' Union have drawn attention to the dangerous situation now prevailing. It means that the trade is drifting to disaster and for that reason the entry of further new drivers cannot be justified. I wished to make clear that the concession about which the Financial Secretary recently boasted in the House is regarded as completely inadequate by those people to whom he considers it is providing some benefit.

6.5 p.m.

Sir William Darling: This is indeed an ungrateful world. If the City of Edinburgh had received a concession of £22,500 in Purchase Tax on its taxis it would have rejoiced and been exceeding glad. But such is the cupidity of representatives of this voracious trade in the County of London that nothing satisfies them. I beg the Chancellor not to make any attempt in the future to propitiate the hon. and gallant Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) and those who think with him. I am of the opinion that, far from giving advantages to London, the disadvantages under which

Londoners at present suffer should be increased, though that has nothing to do with this Bill, but—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: As this has nothing to do with this Bill I hope the hon. Member will not pursue the subject. If he does, he will be out of order.

Sir W. Darling: If I am permitted to say so, it may well be an evil that the Chancellor has made life in London less expensive than it was, when the object of all wise politicians should be to make life in London more difficult and more expensive and thus reduce the enormity of the burden imposed on the rest of the country by the presence of 15 million people in this part of the island.
At any rate, I am right in pointing out the ingratitude of the hon. and gallant Member for Brixton, but I am glad to say that it is not the characteristic of his hon. Friends who have spoken. The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) has invented a new slogan to tell the people of this country—"Taxation is worth while; rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your taxation." That is a livelier and a happier expression of what, I am sure, is not generally a very popular opinion.
I wish to make a few observations on the subject of Purchase Tax. I see the difficulty of my right hon. Friend in connection with this impost which he inherited. It is a clutter of inequalities which he will find difficulty in getting rid of finally by his next Budget. He is aware that the ad valorem method of taxation is easier to handle. I am reinforced in my view by the observations of the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Crosland). I take the view that Income Tax and Profits Tax are taxes upon success and ability. Those persons who have made a profit are punished. I share the view of the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South that there should be a tax on consumption and then all the difficulties and problems associated with Income Tax would disappear.
If I am a greedy man I should pay according to the measure of my greed. If I consume a larger proportion of the social product in the form of elaborate parties, or if I purchase an expensive motor car, I should pay accordingly. But


to tax me because I am the one person who has made a profit when 99 others have failed is both uneconomic and unwise. Let us tax people on their consumption and by that method we shall be able to develop direct taxation to a far larger extent than it is imposed today.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Major Anstruther-Gray) referred to the tax upon cigarettes and whisky and many other desirable things. I favour voluntary taxation. If I wish I may buy a packet of cigarettes and pay 3s. 7d. for them and give 2s. 9½d. in the form of tax to the Revenue. If I deny myself, if I become a stoic and say I shall have no cigarettes, I save the tax. That is voluntary taxation. I was delighted to learn that this was commended by that well-known Socialist philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill himself—

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: He was not a Socialist.

Sir W. Darling: I said a great Socialist philosopher. He is acclaimed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gaitskell), a former Chancellor of the Exchequer who would have embraced him, and I am glad to see he had a direct affinity with the trade union movement of which the hon. and gallant Gentleman was such a distinguished supporter. I cannot claim to have known about John Stuart Mill favouring direct taxation, but I can assure the House that it is the practice in the U.S.S.R. to tax in this way. Obviously there is no Profits Tax in the U.S.S.R. because there are no profits. But the way in which their vast revenues are raised is by direct taxation. Everyone pays direct taxation, and it is an excellent system, though I know the hon. Member for Sowerby would deplore the passing of an archaic form of imposition which has given him and his colleagues an interesting and profitable occupation over many years.
I would pursue a system of taxation on the great distributive organisations of our country. The shops and sellers of merchandise of all kinds would collect the tax, as they have been collecting it in the form of P.A.Y.E. This would eliminate an expensive, costly and inquisitorial machine. I know I am

very nearly out of order, but I have very nearly finished. Having said these words, I would join in the many congratulations to the Chancellor. Somebody somewhat grudgingly said that my right hon. Friend had been fortunate that the terms of trade had turned in his favour. Perhaps they did, but I recollect what Robert Browning said:
… sudden the worst turns the best to the brave.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer in the face of crisis was a brave man. He is entitled to the rewards of bravery.

6.10 p.m.

Mr. Norman Cole: The hon. and gallant Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) has put up a good case against his own party, who were in power up to two years ago. He was grudging in his thanks to the Chancellor for the rebate in Purchase Tax in respect of London taxi-cabs. The whole burden of his complaint was that it was too little and too late. He might argue that with those of his party who did not bring in the concession up to October, 1951—the end of six years of Socialism. If it is late now I would point out that it should have been done by those who had power earlier.
The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) seems to have a conflict in his mind about the "burden" of Income Tax generally. He referred to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary and to his use of the word "burden." The hon. Member for Sowerby said that in his view taxation was not a burden, but a method of distribution of people's money—especially other people's money. At the end of his speech he made the wise and shrewd comment that we must bear in mind that a piece of untaxed income is very different from a piece of taxed income. If that comment does not lay emphasis upon the burden of taxation, I do not know what does.
Whether or not the hon. Member for Sowerby and others think that taxation is a burden, the public always has thought, and will continue to think, that any form of tax is a burden upon daily life. I hope that my right hon. Friend will carry on with his campaign of reducing the standard rate of Income Tax until it is cut down to common sense


proportions. When we reach those proportions a new day will dawn for the prosperity and happiness of the people.
I wish to refer specially to the Purchase Tax concessions. Without going into detail I want to impress upon my right hon. Friend that he should not give up this difficult fight in his effort to help those who have to bear the burden of the Purchase Tax concessions which are made to the public generally. I refer to the retailers. None of us knows exactly how he can find a solution—whether it be through the schemes suggested by the National Chamber of Trade, by means of a sales tax as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Sir W. Darling) or whatever it may be.
The distributive traders of the country, whose duty and privilege it is to pass the goods from the manufacturer to the people who buy, are entitled to the fairest possible deal in this respect. I still believe that a solution can be found. I hope that the fight will not be given up. I recommend to my right hon. Friend the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, West (Mr. Assheton) which was made during the Committee stage when, I believe, not too much notice was taken of it. He suggested that a committee of two or three people, charged with the task of finding a solution within three months, might well be set up. I think that might go some way towards solving this difficult problem.
Whatever the solution may be I hope that the suggestions put forward by the National Chamber of Trade, by hon. Members and others will continue to receive every consideration and that, at least, the retailers will feel that the Government are doing what they can to give everyone a fair deal. A pertinent remark in the Hutton Report says that Purchase Tax remissions help every section of the community, except the retailer who does not gain anything.
On a further point, I ask the Chancellor to give his attention to the question of including more garments in the range of the D Scheme. I refer to hats, which are made in my constituency and which are not made of knitted materials. Hon. Members may not know that hats made of knitted materials are subject to an 8s. D line, whereas those made of other

materials attract ordinary Purchase Tax at the rate of 25 per cent. Those of non-knitted materials are made in my constituency and as a result it has been suggested to me that consideration should be given to the matter. Representations have been made to the Chancellor, and I hope that he will make an investigation.
There has been much carping by hon. Members opposite about the effects of the 6d. concession on Income Tax. It is true that in some respects those who do not pay Income Tax cannot gain from such a concession, but, on reflection, hon. Members will agree that any country which seeks prosperity, which seeks to move forward in the competitive markets of the world, cannot fail to gain by a continuous diminution in the standard rate of Income Tax.
I hope that we shall not be led astray by any philosophical ideas that this is a method of distribution of income or a system of discrimination. The fact remains that if we can have a reasonable standard rate of tax all, from the richest to the poorest, will gain from the prosperity which will ensue. I commend my right hon. Friend, both in this respect and others, for producing a Finance Bill which gives a hostage for the future and which rests for its strength and success upon the hard work and co-operation of our people.

6.18 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Gaitskell: This is the twelfth day, if one includes the Second Reading, on which we have discussed this year's Finance Bill. Taking the Committee and Report stages, on which we spent ten days, on all days but one we went beyond the normal time and ended, by a strange coincidence, at 11.30 p.m. Therefore, we have perhaps had a less intensive period of discussion than on some occasions, but it has been quite a long one.
Our policy on the Opposition side has been not to waste time on trivialities, but to concentrate our Amendments—and, therefore, so far as we could effect them, the debates—upon the subjects which we felt were of greatest interest to the Committee or to the House, or on subjects—they do not always coincide—which we believed to be of the greatest importance.
The Government have been wise in keeping out of these proceedings the influence of the Patronage Secretary. On


the whole, they have given us a reasonable amount of time. Once or twice there was a slight panic on the Government side and an attempt to go rather faster than the Opposition wanted, but, wisely, better counsels prevailed and so we were able to complete our discussions without anything like an all-night Sitting.
It is true that the Bill was less controversial than last year's Measure. This year it did not contain elaborate provisions for imposing an Excess Profits Levy, but a very simple provision for abolishing an Excess Profits Levy. That is something we all accept far more easily. It did not contain an elaborate new scheme for Purchase Tax—the D Scheme—but it contained proposals for remissions.
At the same time, the Bill contains a number of grave weaknesses to which I will refer in a moment. However, this is an occasion—one of those rare occasions—when it is permissible, and indeed almost conventional, to pay tributes and give compliments to hon. Members other than maiden speakers. I propose to follow the tradition and to say a few personal words.
First of all, I should like to express my appreciation to my hon. Friends who have done such a lot on the Opposition side to frame Amendments and to see that they are properly discussed. It is not always very easy for the Opposition, without the assistance which the Government have, to frame Amendments as they should be framed, but I think that a tribute is due to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) for all that they have done both this year and the previous year.
If anyone has any doubts about the competence of my right hon. and learned Friend as a Parliamentary draftsman, I would commend to him the new Clause in connection with companies which my right hon. and learned Friend drafted. If the drafting was judged, as it is so often, mainly on the length of the sentences, undoubtedly this was an extraordinary fine piece of drafting. There were, I think, only two commas in something like 20 lines, and no full stops;

obviously, a most remarkable piece of work.
I should also like to commend my hon. Friends who have taken so much of the burden of the debate—my hon. Friends the Members for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Crosland), Edmonton (Mr. Albu) and Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley). It is always invidious to single people out, but I think the House will agree that they have spoken on many occasions with real knowledge and very much to the point on the various subjects under discussion. Finally, I express my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) who tirelessly followed the whole course of our discussions, as he did when he held the office of Financial Secretary, and who has been extremely successful and convincing in his speeches.
As for the Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park has already paid the Financial Secretary some compliments, which we all endorse. He certainly has done a good job. He has worked very hard, and most of his replies have shown a very careful study of the official brief, although the language in which they have been presented has been much better than that of the briefs. He, also, was fully carrying out his responsibilities in praising his right hon. Friend the Chancellor when he endorsed the expression, used by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby, that the Chancellor was "the cat's whiskers."
I should also like to express our appreciation to the Economic Secretary, whose replies have always been courteous, clear and patient. We have not always found ourselves in agreement, but I am bound to say to the Financial Secretary that, while I give him high marks for style, I should mark his economic papers a little lower—and he cannot get away with making rude remarks about the examiners—whereas I should mark the papers of the Economic Secretary, as befits the title of his office, much higher.
As for the Chancellor himself, he has been much pre-occupied—and we all understand the reasons—with other things, but he has taken quite a considerable part in our debates, and has always spoken on major issues. He certainly has been patient, and considerate of the wishes and convenience of hon. Members of the Committee and of the


House generally. We can all agree in our appreciation of his efforts, and can only hope that he will continue to be successful in resisting all attempts to limit the time allotted to the Finance Bill. In that way, we can have proper discussion, with the collaboration and help of the Opposition, which will always be forthcoming, and we shall have another successful series of debates.
I am only sorry that we have not had the interventions of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Materials this year. We have all missed him, and we are also sorry that the learned Solicitor-General has not taken a larger part, because, when the Solicitor-General gets up to speak, there is a rustle of excitement on these benches and a keen appreciation that here is an opportunity, which might not be presented if some other Front Bench batsman were put in, to take a few wickets. We are sorry that he was not put in more frequently to enliven our proceedings.
I now turn to the Bill itself, and I will begin with the Entertainments Duty. I remember some years ago, when I was Minister of Fuel and Power, having some correspondence with the then Conservative Member for Ashford, Mr. E. P. Smith, who was concerned about the petrol ration, and was not satisfied with the treatment which some constituent was receiving. In his reply to me, he said that I used a Euclidian argument. I pointed out to him that administration was almost entirely a matter of drawing lines in the right places, and, therefore, it was quite proper that I should use a Euclidian argument.
Entertainments Duty is a very good example. What we have to ask ourselves is whether the lines are drawn in the right places at the moment. I have no doubt of the answer; they are not. The present position cannot possibly be held. It is quite out of the question that, having exempted cricket from Entertainments Duty, everything else should remain in. I do not see the Third Division football clubs, however wealthy some First Division clubs may be, tolerating this quite unjust situation.
There is another aspect of Entertainments Duty which is equally untenable, and that is the present situation in regard to the amateur concession. We proposed,

during the Committee stage of the Bill, some further concessions to amateur dramatic and operatic societies. I am not concerned with those today, but I am concerned with something which has been drawn to my attention recently. There is complete obscurity as to whether or not certain games that are played in the north of England, and, in the case of Scotland, the Highland Games, where prizes of a fairly substantial character are won attract Entertainments Duty. My hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian and Peebles (Mr. Pryde) did not succeed in getting any reply from the Government on this. I do not know whether the Chancellor is in a position to give that reply, but I hope he is, because here is another rather similar case which actually only reached me this morning.
The House will be interested to know that it concerns the game of table tennis. I have received a letter, the whole of which I will not read, from the Leeds and District Table Tennis League, in which they tell me that the League holds annually various individual championships, confined, as they put it, to "our own registered players." The letter goes on:
The players winning the various events are presented with a trophy which is held for one year only, and also a small miniature cup which is retained by the player. The finals of these events are held at a hall in the centre of the City, and to cover the cost of the hall, trophies, etc., a charge is made for admission to these finals. An application for exemption from Entertainments Duty was made to the Customs and Excise (Leeds), but after four weeks' deliberations we were informed that, as 'the League cannot be regarded as established and conducted for the furtherance of amateur sport, exemption from Entertainments Duty must be refused'.
I find that a very surprising decision. I do not imagine that the Chancellor could possibly throw any light on it at the moment, but I do ask him, in lieu of the Parliamentary Question that I should otherwise put down, whether he will investigate this case; will he make clear that a League of this kind, which, according to the officers who have written to me, is "established for the promotion and furtherance of table tennis in Leeds, and is not conducted or established for profit," is to be treated as having amateur status; otherwise, we are in an impossible position.
I can hardly think of a stronger case than one which came to my knowledge only this morning, and I feel that, if


we are not to get into great difficulty in the administration of this taxation, a great deal of care will be needed. I hope that the Chancellor will give the matter his personal attention and see that we do not have ridiculous decisions such as the one I have quoted.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Ashton) has not intervened. I saw him sitting on the third bench—and later on the fourth—and I fully expected, in view of the influence which he exercised on behalf of cricket last year, that he would have been getting up and asking the Chancellor to do something for football. But no, there he is still sitting silently, though having returned to his normal place on the second bench. I still hope that he will speak privately to the Chancellor on all this, not forgetting table tennis.
I pass now to the Purchase Tax. I do not propose to rehearse our arguments once more, because they are, I believe, rather familiar, and can be summarised as follows. We believe that the right way to handle this tax is slowly and gradually as the budgetary situation permits, to exempt more and more of the more necessary items in it, and gradually to convert it into more and more of a luxury tax. The Financial Secretary, replying I think, by implication to that argument, said this afternoon that, after all, nothing is a luxury to those who make it. That is one of those rather superficial comments which do not bear very much examination.
I do not know—if I dare refer to a mink coat after what the Lord Chief Justice had to say about them—what the girls in the fur trade really think. Are they really supposed to believe that mink coats are not luxuries for them? Of course they are. I do not doubt that what the hon. Gentleman meant was that the girls were interested in their employment. That, of course, is true, but the Financial Secretary's way of putting it is very misleading.
The implication of his argument in favour of reducing Purchase Tax on these luxury articles is that one must not have any change in employment at all. In other words, if people are employed in producing luxuries, they must be allowed to go on producing luxuries no matter what the situation of the country may be, whether

we can afford them or not, or whether those people would be better employed producing something which they themselves could consume. In these enlightened days that is an extraordinary point of view which I hope the Chancellor will repudiate despite the polite remarks which the Financial Secretary has made about him.
I come now to the rather wider issues—the initial allowances, the interest on the National Debt and Income Tax so far as it affects companies, all of them, of course, touched on in different Clauses of the Bill. I think we are generally agreed about the need for a higher rate of fixed investment in this country and for improving the quality and quantity of the machinery with which our workers produce. We know that such an increase in investment is not only necessary because of its bearing upon productivity, but also that higher productivity itself is more than ever necessary if we are to hold our position in the increasingly competitive export markets. That, therefore, is common ground.
On this matter of investment, the attitude of the Labour Government was to encourage investment, so far as resources permitted, and to control it partly by selective credit control and partly by building licences and in other ways, and, at the same time, by a budgetary policy which was admittedly unpopular in many quarters and which involved large Budget surpluses, to slow down consumption and to prevent the inflation which might otherwise have developed; to this one might also add the initial allowances which were, of course, specifically introduced for the purpose of encouraging investment.
These initial allowances were, of course, only suspended in 1951 because of the defence programme and because it became necessary, in order to get rearmament going quickly, to make some cut in fixed investments. That situation is happily now past, and we are all agreed on the need once again to get the expansion. But what is the Government's policy, as exposed in this Bill? First of all, there is a higher rate of interest. It involves a higher charge on the Treasury of some £65 million in this year as compared with the position before the new monetary policy was introduced.
That, obviously, will certainly not encourage investment. On the contrary,


higher rates of interest are bound to have a discouraging effect on investment, though I admit that it is a matter for argument just how serious that is. Psychologically, the effect of a higher Bank rate is that it creates uncertainty, and just at the moment when we ought to be encouraging expenditure on equipment we are, in fact, retaining an instrument in force which is discouraging in that respect.
There has been some restoration of the initial allowances, but, as we believe, an inadequate restoration. Though I do not want to repeat the arguments, we still feel that the Government's attitude is extremely difficult to understand. We do not understand why they have not returned to the 40 per cent. initial allowances which were in existence before the defence programme began. The Government point to the fact—and here I come to the third matter to which I referred a moment ago—that they are reducing company taxation. But the trouble there is that there is no guarantee at all that the cut in company taxation through the reduction in the standard rate of Income Tax and through the eventual diminution in the Profits Tax—which benefit will come later—will, in fact, lead to any increase in investment at all.
Finally, of course, the Government have encouraged an increase in consumption. I must say that the general effect of the whole budgetary policy, as explained at the time of the Budget itself and during the debates on this Finance Bill, seems far more likely to give encouragement to consumption than to investment. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South has several times referred to the alarming developments in the distribution of manpower as between different industries. I will give the Chancellor these additional figures which cover a longer period than that to which my hon. Friend was referring.
In the 18 months from the middle of 1950 to the end of 1951—broadly speaking, the last 18 months of the Labour Government—there was an increase in manpower in engineering, chemicals, vehicles and metals amounting to 250,000 people. Since then, there has been a reduction of 50,000. I see that the Chancellor is querying the relevance of this. It is extremely relevant. The efforts made by the right hon. Gentleman in this

Finance Bill to expand investment show a great need for that, but they also show that as far as the present trends are concerned they are moving in the opposite direction.
All this, no doubt, is superficially—I will not say satisfactory—reassuring so long as we have this quite remarkably favourable external situation of continuously improving terms of trade which, as I ventured to suggest this week-end, will bring a further benefit to the balance of payments this year, if they remain at the same level, of another £300 million. But how much longer is that to last?
In considering the Bill, we have to ask what is necessary when the favourable position no longer continues. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Spearman), who was unfortunate in his brush with the Chair, began by praising the Chancellor for the greater state of confidence which exists today. He wanted me to use the words which were used about William Pitt, but he really would have taken them out of my mouth had he been allowed to go on with his speech, because, as he proceeded, it became perfectly clear—and I regret that he did not do better with the Chair for this reason—that he took the gloomiest view of the situation and was clearly going to make an attack on the Government for the total inadequacy of their policy, from which he will understand why I do not use the words used about William Pitt.

Mr. Spearman: I ask the right hon. hon. Gentleman not to misrepresent me. I was not speaking about the past, but about the future.

Mr. Gaitskell: Any Government that is worth its salt has to think about the future. It was clear that the hon. Gentleman was most dissatisfied with the policy as it is at the moment.
I turn, finally, to the other aspects of the Income Tax and Surtax changes. I do not propose to rehearse the arguments which we have been through so many times about the fairness or otherwise of these reliefs. They cannot, of course, as a matter of equity between different classes, possibly be justified. It is out of the question to justify the giving of £22 million to nine million taxpayers below £500 a year, and exactly the same sum to 270,000 taxpayers with over £2,000 a year, one class actually gaining 1s. per


week on the average and the other gaining an average of 32s. 6d. per week.
The Government pretend that it is necessary to give people incentives. I have never been much impressed with the argument that we have to do so in order to encourage investment and to increase work. But even if there were something in that argument we could not ignore the wider consequences of a policy of continually assisting the people who are the most prosperous in the community. One has to remember these concessions against the background of the very substantial food prices which people have to pay nowadays.
I know that the Chancellor will say, "After all, I made concessions last year of various kinds." It would be quite out of the question for me to go into them. The plain fact is that the rise in food prices particularly, especially when they have not been compensated so far as the lower incomes are concerned, are bound to hit most severely those people who spend a higher proportion of their incomes on food. That is what is happening.
It may be possible that the Government will find themselves in a position to remove rationing before long because prices have gone up so much, and there will no doubt be a lot of rejoicing in some quarters about it, but, fundamentally, it will be done simply at the expense of the poorest people who can no longer afford to buy. That is a policy which we cannot possibly accept.
When one considers these tax adjustments with the food price considerations we cannot ignore the problem of wages and the repercussions which are likely or possible in that connection. There is some considerable risk that the Government, whose policy has been one of deliberately putting up the cost of living—the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Major Anstruther-Gray) spoke of the rise in the cost of living as the really difficult problem—may put it up still further by their food subsidy policy in a way which really hurts the poorest people in the country.

Major Anstruither-Gray: The cost of living has not risen nearly so fast under the present Government as it did under the Administration with which the right hon. Gentleman was associated.

Mr. Gaitskell: In the last year of the Labour Government we were faced with a very rapid rise in world prices, but the present Government have had the benefit of falling world prices. Nevertheless, they have put up the cost of food by cutting the subsidies. It is no good blaming anybody else if, as the result of this policy, there is a difficult wage situation. The Government must blame themselves.
I must mention, in passing, the speech made by the right hon. Member for Blackburn, West (Mr. Assheton) because it was rather a surprise. I was delighted to hear him supporting the views which we have put forward about a tax upon expenditure. I only wish that he had been present when we raised that matter with the Financial Secretary and pressed that the whole subject should be discussed by the Royal Commission on Taxation. I would say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Sir W. Darling) that he should read over that debate, when I am sure he will find much instruction in it. He will find that the proposal for an expenditure tax was for a progressive tax on expenditure, that is to say, that the rate of tax would rise as expenditure increased. Whether he will approve of that I do not know.
In passing judgment on this Finance Bill we have to remember its whole background. There is undoubtedly, for the moment, an exceptionally favourable external situation. I very much doubt, in all sincerity, whether this extraordinary situation where an American boom is combined with a fall in commodity prices is likely to last. I think that we shall be faced either with more difficulties in the export trade or with rising import prices; one or the other. I suspect the former.
We have in the circumstances to ask how we can prepare ourselves for the more difficult times that I suspect are ahead. The real gravamen of the charge against the Government is that they fail, in this Budget, to stimulate a higher rate of investment and therefore, a higher rate of productivity. They have done nothing to improve and better relations in industry. Here, we cannot but emphasise that all those who talk of giving incentives by reducing taxation on the higher incomes must be asked to bear in mind the consequences in industry of a policy of that kind.
We cannot just say, "We must give Surtax payers more incentives. Look at the higher rates of tax they pay." If we do that, we are not giving incentives to those who, after all, are, in the last resort, much worse off, even allowing for the higher level of taxation. We are, above all, not creating, but doing just the opposite, that sense of fair play and acceptance of rewards as rewards for merit which I personally regard as so vital.
The Government's policy has been one of taking the smooth and easy way. The Financial Secretary did not say why the Government had made these concessions but it is because industry was depressed. If that was the reason for the concessions we say that, while granting, in view of the depressed state of industry, that some stimulus was necessary, in so far as it was a stimulus to consumption it should have gone to those who needed help most, and in so far as it was a stimulus to investment it should have been far more precise, specific and effective. It is on those grounds that we feel that the Bill, which has now been so thoroughly and fully discussed, will not achieve the aims which the Government hope it will achieve.

6.47 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. R. A. Butler): I shall not follow the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gaitskell) into the more detailed praise which he was thoughtful enough to shower round about him. I think that in referring to several of those who have taken part in our debates he was fulfilling an old tradition.
One satisfaction that the Government have derived from the debates on the Finance Bill, and which I have derived personally, is that we have fulfilled the ordinary constitutional tradition in the House of Commons that hon. Members should have the opportunity, unbridled, to discuss the taxes, and to put forward the points of view of their constituents and their own economic and financial theories, and that we have also got the Bill through in a reasonable time. In these days that is not a bad achievement, if I may put it modestly. The Opposition have put their case with pertinacity and have occupied, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman, quite enough of the Government's time. No doubt the

Leader of the House and the Patronage Secretary feel more strongly on this point than I do.
Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House have made many notable constributions in the course of our debate. The right hon. Gentleman paid a tribute to the Financial Secretary and the Economic Secretary. It might seem that the right hon. Gentleman has some access to the official briefs, because he said that the Financial Secretary had followed the official briefs with embellishments. I cannot suppose that the right hon. Gentleman really has any access to them. He must have been working on the assumption that the official briefs are the same under this Government as they were under the late Administration.
Let me assure him that in every way they are much vivified and also completely different in content, because we now have a bright-eyed service supporting a go-ahead Administration on lines of progress designed to help the country in the future, and not on the lines of austerity, restriction and closing down which were so much a feature of the Administration supported by the right hon. Gentleman. Therefore, the Financial Secretary has had little difficulty, aided by the excellent service, the "silent service" to whom we may not even refer in praise on an occasion like this.
My hon. Friend has put forward the Government's case with great clarity and has done a great deal of hard work. No Chancellor could possibly have had two better Ministers to help him with the Finance Bill than the present Financial Secretary and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. They have taken a great deal of the burden off me and I have depended enormously upon them both. I will not enter into the discussion as to who is the better economist; they are both probably better than I am.

Questions have been raised in this debate about the Entertainments Duty which has caused a good deal of excitement. I understand that cricket is being played with more skill and energy than ever before. I paid a short visit to Lord's, where I greatly admired the manner in which Mr. Watson played with a straight bat. That has taught me a great deal for the future in standing up to the bowling of right hon. and hon. Members opposite.

The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), who has done so much, I understand, to draft the Amendments of the party opposite, referred to the need for long stops to avoid evasion of taxes, which was a subject raised this afternoon. I cannot understand this conception of a side which requires endless long stops. Her Majesty's Government have a good wicket-keeper and no long stops. That is the manner in which we stop evasion of taxes.

I regret very much the rather wild statements which have been made about the evasion of taxes. Indeed, they have been made from both sides of the House on previous occasions. Taking up what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, South said about the need to create the right spirit in the working population of the country, it would be really disastrous if the conception got about that there was a great deal of tax evasion. Frankly, there is not.

There are abuses and, if it is any consolation to hon. Members, every attention is being paid to the debates on Report and in Committee on this subject. We are fortified in our ability to pay some attention to the matter because the debate on the Report stage was almost a replica of the speeches and arguments heard during the Committee stage. To that extent repetition has been very valuable and has forced the subject home to our minds whether we like it or not. I should like to say definitely, now, that the Revenue, backed by Ministers, will certainly take every step necessary where any form of tax evasion is taking place.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, South referred to the exemption of games in the Highlands and similar problems on the borderline of amateur status. It was also referred to by one or two of my hon. Friends who represent constituencies in the Highlands. Customs have not yet reached a final opinion and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman or his hon. Friends would watch the matter with a view to an answer to a Parliamentary Question. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for not putting down a Question on table tennis in Leeds and I will investigate the decision to which he drew my attention.

There is another matter which is not a point of detail, but one of great importance.

It was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard). I was sorry that he was not able to develop his case on behalf of the Scilly islanders, or Scillonians, on the Report stage of the Bill. He has managed to put his case again, however, with the same energy as he has put it before. I cannot go back on any statement of mine to which he has referred this afternoon, because I would not have made the statement unless I had a reason in making it, but the decision was not taken on any petty basis or because one or two people mentioned it. It was taken for an abstract reason, the reason that it is extremely difficult to separate one set of potential taxpayers from others in the United Kingdom as a whole.

I have thought long and earnestly about the many statements which my hon. Friend has so conscientiously made to us about the islanders. I have thought about the question of delay, but I have come to the conclusion that a further deferment of the application of this Bill when it becomes an Act would hardly materially benefit the islands, since I must be quite frank and say that the decision has been taken to submit the islanders to the operation of the Income Tax laws like anybody else.

I should like to point out to my hon. Friend, however, that no one will start paying Income Tax because of Clause 29 until April of next year and that no Profits Tax will become due before 1954–55. So that means that there will be an element of delay and, while I think it unlikely, I hope that his constituents will become accustomed to the idea. I have also considered the other alleviations to which my hon. Friend referred, and, in particular, help for the transport service of the islands. I went into the matter fully and compared their situation with the other islands and with the problem which we have had, for example, in Northern Ireland.

While I realise that the islands have their own particular difficulties in transport I am afraid that I cannot give any guarantee of special Government help. I will say that any Government will watch particular problems like this or any other when they are brought to notice. My hon. Friend may be satisfied that he has now made such a strong case in our debates that in future the needs of his constituents


will be very much in the mind of the Government of the day.

My hon. Friend raised the question of the basis of the tax and asked if I could alter it. Frankly, I hope and believe that the burden of the tax will not fall very heavily on the working population. As I pointed out in the previous debate, the tax may be only just over £1 a year for people drawing quite a large sum a week—above the normal for the islands. Therefore, I do not think that the incidence on the working population will be very great. I also stress that where the tax is levied it will be within the capabilities of those who are assessed to pay it. They will, at any rate, realise that they are paying for the very heavy burdens which we in the United Kingdom are bearing today. Meanwhile, we on the mainland will have sympathy for the islanders' very gallant struggle against Nature. Again, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the manner in which he has put their case.

The next point raised in the debate referred to Purchase Tax. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, South wonders whether girls who make mink coats regard them as luxuries. I am quite sure that they do, but they also regard their employment not as a luxury but as a right. What interests me particularly in this discussion about luxury trades is the fact that some of the most important of these, such as the silversmith trade, have in them some of the best craftsmen and craftswomen which our country still possesses. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, South asked whether we believed in change of employment into vital work. Of course we do, but we also believe in the retention of employment for our craftsmen, and we believe that one generation should pass to another the craft of its ancestors. Today, that power of craftsmanship is, alas, too infrequent among our working population.

As the hon. and learned Member for Kettering said the point is, of course, that we could not easily hold the tax at its previous very high rate at the present time. It was neither a good manoeuvre from the point of view of Customs nor good for the industries concerned. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) and other hon. Members representing

constituencies where the trades affected are carried on have been to see us and have told us that the tax was doing positive harm to industry. It was in that spirit that I decided to make the general reduction which I made. In fact, I will turn the tables on the hon. and learned Member for Kettering, because it would have been a very much more popular task to pick out certain things and extract them from the Purchase Tax altogether, but I do not believe that, in the end, that would have been the more patriotic course for the industries concerned or for the country.

The right hon. Member for Leeds, South raised various rather more important economic questions arising out of the subject of manpower. I was in some difficulty, because I belong to rather an old generation which believes that on a Finance Bill one is only allowed to discuss what is in the Bill, and in that connection I regret having missed the latter half of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Spearman). But I feel I must now refer as shortly as I can to many of the arguments which have since been raised and which range over the wide economic front. I promise that I shall be very short on this subject, simply answering what has been raised and not attempting to make a great economic speech.

The first point that the right hon. Gentleman raised was that of manpower. It is true that, latterly, there have been certain tendencies to go back into the consumer goods industries and into distribution. The tendency to continue the increase in the number of coal miners, for example, is not as great as it was when the Government assumed office. In this connection, I should like to say that the need for the production of more coal is one of the vital elements in our future prosperity, and that should be borne in mind by everyone of us, without giving lectures to anybody; it should be borne in mind that that is vital to our future prosperity.

The right hon. Gentleman then said that one of the chief sources of blame against the Government and against this Bill was that they had not increased production. I do not know whether I am overstating his case, but I think he was inclined to be critical on this matter of


production. I can say this. It is at present too early to say what the effect of the Budget is likely to be in the long-term. Economics is a somewhat difficult science, but things come through in the end. One can positively see cause and effect.

Now, as a result of the Budget and the spirit created by the Budget, we can see that production has continued to expand. In January and February it was about the same as in 1951. In March and April it was about 2 per cent. higher than in the equivalent months, and the provisional figure for May is about 3 per cent. above the May, 1951, level. I purposely prefaced these remarks with the modest statement that it is not possible to tell the effect for some time to come. It will at least be satisfactory to the House to know that there has been an increase in production and that this trend is definitely being maintained at the present time. That shows that we are making some progress.

Mr. Gaitskell: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether there has been an increase in the production and investment industries—engineering, and so on?

Mr. Butler: I cannot go into details, but I am just coming to the question of investment.
Before I come to that question, however, I want to tell the House that this afternoon the Board of Trade published the latest trade figures giving the import-export picture, and while we can take satisfaction from the fact that United Kingdom exports to North America in June were at a new record level of £30·5 million, and while exports to Canada were again chiefly responsible for the high figures, with a total of £16·1 million—slightly higher than the April figure—while those are most comforting improvements, the general trade position is as yet not satisfactory if we are to maintain the impetus which we so much need. In particular, it is necessary to encourage to the best of our ability in every way possible, which would be quite outside the scope of this Bill, the expansion of our export trade throughout the world.
This is a statement which I wanted to make in the course of the Third Reading. While our production figures are better, we still have the great anxiety of pushing

our exports to the maximum of our ability if we are to see the thing through in the way we all want. The import figure is not quite so high as it was last month, as will be seen in the statement published tomorrow. It still remains reasonable, but it is the failure to get enough exports that is really the serious aspect.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to the question of investment. As he knows, owing to the need to concentrate on defence and exports, when this Government first came in, there was a limitation on certain types of investment, but we are now doing our best to encourage investment in all the sectors where it is really necessary, including the nationalised industries sector. I believe that the coal industry is a case where more will obviously be valuable. At any rate, this is the trend in our policy at present, and we are, at the same time, backing that policy with the policy of bringing back the initial allowances which are included as part of the Finance Bill this year.
Several hon. Members asked why, and whether, we could not obtain more by a 40 per cent. initial allowance. The answer to that is that I could not afford to carry more expense forward to the Budget for next year and the year after than I have already done, and I believe that the 20 per cent. which we have suggested will be of very definite help in the present situation. Of course, it would be possible, as an economic purist—and I am not too bad a one really—to say that the initial allowance is not an actual figure on the Budget but is a form of saving which goes into industry and is, therefore, a good investment in that way. Nevertheless, we have to have some regard for revenue figures, and I must remind the House that we are carrying forward this sum for the initial allowances; we are carrying forward a year and a half hence the loss which we shall have on the Excess Profits Levy, and we must have some regard to the revenue figures as they will look in the months and years to come.
While I think it is possible at present to take a more cheering view of our economy, it is essential that there should be a bigger drive for exports. I think the revenue figures—that is, the ordinary Budget figures—can and will look well if we follow the advice of my right hon.


Friend the Member for Blackburn, West (Mr. Assheton) and economise wherever we possibly can, be as careful of the public money as we can possibly be, and have a great drive for greater production and increase the national income.
If the national income takes its normal trend and is increased, then we can carry the present revenue outlook, we can carry the general situation, we can carry the defence burden, as long as it does not grow to an extent which puts it out of court, and we can carry our great social service programme, of which we are all so justly proud. But it all depends on increasing the national income and on greater production. We must reflect that in this period American aid will be tailing off, and it is the aim of every healthy person in this country to regain our economic independence and all that it means.
I conclude with these remarks. The case has again been brought up that perhaps this Finance Bill was not fair to this or that section. The answer is that for 15 million to 16 million persons, excluding their actual families, who are involved in Income Tax, it is not too bad at all. The hon. and learned Member for Kettering said that some people only get a few shillings relief. It has always been the fate of a Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether it be Sir Stafford Cripps, who often complained of this, or others, that when one has already relieved some people of tax one cannot relieve them again; and, having relieved a large number of workers in the last Budget, I cannot do it again. Indeed, in the last Budget about 2 million were taken out of tax. The same thing goes for the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park with respect to the old age pensioners. We did our best in the last Budget. Their case is ever before us, and we shall always have sympathy for their very great difficulties.
The fact is that as long as taxation went on at its previous level, the United Kingdom could not pull through to better times. We have taken the first step in relieving taxation. Whether we can continue along this path is entirely in the hands of industry and the country. I trust that they will respond to the invitation they have been given. If they do, the efforts we are all making together will indeed be worth while.

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Osborne: It is with some diffidence and a great deal of nervousness that I attempt to address the House this evening. I have sat here throughout the debate and I had hoped that I should have the good fortune to catch the eye of the Chair previously. I would remind hon. Members who may feel a little annoyed that I am speaking after the Chancellor has finished, that the question of the national Exchequer, the raising of national taxes and the taxation of the people has been a great fight throughout our constitutional history. Back benchers have not been put down, even by the Crown, in the days of the Stuarts and the Tudors, let alone by the Chief Whips of the parties.
It is because I feel so strongly about this matter that I want to make my protest. The right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gaitskell) said that he hoped the Chancellor would not restrict discussion on the Finance Bill. I should like to ask him why he got up an hour before he was due and so shut out some hon. Members on this side of the House. Was it because his own back benchers had dried up and he had no one else to support him?
He talked about the difficulties we had to face in the export trade. Throughout the whole of this debate those difficulties have been insufficiently stressed. I believe, as my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Spearman) said, that we are faced with a much graver situation than most of us realise. In that connection, I want to make one or two observations on Clause 12, which has to do with the standard rate of Income Tax. That is the heart of the whole Bill.
Whilst 6d. off the standard rate is a good start, it is not going to provide anything like the amount of incentive that the Chancellor hopes for, nor will it provide enough incentive to get us out of our trouble. From my experience in industry, I suggest that the men who are running it regard 9s. in the £ as still far too high a rate. I suggest that we should reduce it to 5s. in the £. At the rate of 6d. off each year this will take eight years.
In his recent book, "We Too Can Prosper," Mr. Graham Hutton suggested that the key to our prosperity lies


in management. Whatever are the other factors that will help to increase production, the management factor is the supreme one. I put it to the Chancellor that he will not get increased efficiency, either in the nationalised or the privately owned sector of industry, unless management is considerably better. He will not get considerably increased production while Income Tax is at the rate of 9s. in the £ and Surtax remains at 10s. in the £.
If he is to get the best results from management he must pay men for their ability, skill, and willingness to carry responsibility. It is upon the high salaries in the management group that his heavy taxation falls so savagely. I suggest that in considering his future Budgets—assuming that he is not transferred to No. 10 before the next one comes around—he will have to take a good deal more off Income Tax than he has begun taking off here.
I ask him to think of direct rather than indirect taxation in considering any reduction in the future. I am certain that any hon. Member—on either side of the House—who has anything to do with industry knows that it is almost impossible to get men to work overtime if, as a result, they have to pay more and more Income Tax. If we are to have the increased production which is so necessary for our survival, somehow or other the Chancellor must find a way by which overtime is not taxed. Any trade union leader of experience will agree with this, and any industrialist knows it full well.
Men will not work that extra Saturday in the factory if they know that half of what they earn will be taken in taxation. Whilst a reduction of 6d. in the £ is a good start, it does not begin to touch the fringe of the problem. The Chancellor must give his attention to relieving not only the top executives of the direct taxation which they have to bear, but also to relieving the artisan and the skilled worker, who are today earning, on an average, between £10 and £12 a week. If those men are to be encouraged to come into the factories and do the extra work their overtime must be free of Income Tax.
I want the Chancellor to produce a scheme that will relieve all men earning under £1,000 a year from direct taxation. No doubt the Chancellor has read the

first article in this week's "Economist." I am sorry he is scowling; I assure him that it is a very good one. It asks one or two pertinent questions about the greater productivity in America than in this country, and why the Americans get more productivity. The Chancellor has said that this Bill is an incentive to production. We are told that American industrial productivity is from two to five times greater than ours. The question is, why—and will this Budget help to raise our productivity to their level?
The article in the "Economist" says:
The real question to ask is not why we do not produce more but why we do not want to produce more.
I suggest that the answer is that it does not pay a man at any level to produce more because, either at the bench level or the management level, the more he produces the harder he has to work—and the harder he has to work for the Chancellor. Both on behalf of the technical men and the management, I say that men are tired of working just for the Chancellor. They want to work a little more for themselves.
The "Economist" says:
The real secret of American productivity is that American society is imbued through and through with the desirability, the Tightness, the morality of production. Men serve God in America, in all seriousness and sincerity, through striving for economic efficiency.
I understand that that is what the Chancellor wants his Budget to achieve here but, so far, it will not do so. The "Economist" goes on:
But in Britain, if any moral feeling at all survives about economic matters, it is usually a vague suspicion that economic success is reprehensible and unworthy. From this difference in attitudes everything else follows.
The Chancellor should give his mind to this question. Hon. Members on both sides of the House, so many times, have given voice to the suspicion that success in economic affairs is something to be ashamed of, whereas in America it is something to be proud of. Until we get another point of view on this matter I cannot see that the prosperity which the Chancellor expects will come to this country.
There is one other aspect with which I want to deal. It is a point of view which has been put forward by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I do not think there is any denying the Opposition's


claim that Clause 12 provides more incentive to the rich than to the poor. There is no denying that, as an incentive factor, the Budget gives more incentive to those who have than to those who have not. It seems to me that there is only one moral justification for Clause 12—that those in the management group for whom I have been pleading, and who I think ought to have even more encouragement, must give a great deal more under Clause 12 than they have in the past so to increase the national product that those who get nothing under Clause 12 may benefit through increased productivity.

Mr. Butler: I do not want to disturb my hon. Friend's argument, but what does he mean by "giving"? Is it not a case of restoring to people their own money?

Mr. Osborne: I agree that it is restoring to people their own money, but from a social and moral point of view it is difficult for me, at any rate, to justify allowing a great deal more to go to the West End if the East End suffers thereby.
I can see no argument against that, and what I am saying to the Chancellor is this: if we are to justify Clause 12, which I support fully—indeed I ask for more under Clause 12—we can do so only if he will appeal to those in management and to those who already have a large slice of the national cake so to increase the national productivity that the unfortunate people who get nothing under Clause 12 will, through the social services, get a bigger cut of a bigger national cake. We cannot justify Clause 12 and the reduction of direct taxation unless we can say to our poorer constituents that, as a result, the national productivity will so increase that they in turn will get a bigger share than they would get if this step were not taken.
I am certain that no matter how good the management in the economic machine, unless we can carry the industrial worker with us we shall not get 100 per cent. production. We shall not get the full support of the industrial workers unless they feel that what we are doing is normally right and just. It is useless to blink this point. If I were poor, as once I was, I should not accept it unless I were convinced that it was right.
As the Chancellor is likely to be Prime Minister of this country, I ask him to bend his energies in future to telling the country that he is not merely giving a little extra to those who already have a lot but at the same time is appealing to those who carry responsibility to increase the efficiency of our economic machine so that the have-nots will get a greater share than they have had in the past. If he does that, I am sure he will have the whole country behind him, but if he does not, then there is a great deal more in what the Opposition have said than many on this side of the House have been prepared to acknowledge.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS BILL [Lords]

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: The Amendment on the Order Paper in page 1, line 17, at the beginning, to insert:
(1) The University shall have the style and title of the University of St. Andrews and Dundee,
is not selected.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: On a point of order. Is it your intention, Mr. Speaker, to select the Amendment standing in the name of myself and other hon. Members?

Mr. Speaker: No. I have just said that it is not my intention to select it. I think the matter was adequately debated in Committee.

Mr. Thomson: Further to that point of order. May I respectfully submit to you that since the point was argued in Committee fresh developments of some importance have taken place. During the Committee stage the Secretary of State gave an undertaking that if there were new representations he would give them consideration. May I respectfully ask you how we are to have publicly declared to us the Secretary of State's view on those representations and to express our own opinion of them unless we are able to discuss the Amendment?

Mr. Speaker: If, having listened to the representations mentioned, the Secretary of State had been in favour of the course proposed in the Amendment, he would have added his own name to it, which would have settled the matter.

Mr. Thomson: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I cannot permit argument on it. I have given the matter great consideration.

7.26 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. James Stuart): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
I have it in command from Her Majesty to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the University of St. Andrews Bill, has been pleased to place at the disposal of Parliament the interests of the Crown so far as they are affected by the Bill.
Perhaps I may also add my thanks to the House and especially to hon. Members for Scottish constituencies for the manner in which they have dealt with the Bill. I think it is fair to say that on both sides of the House the Bill was debated on Second Reading and in Committee with a full sense of responsibility by all who took part. Our purpose has been, of course, to remove those constitutional defects which have led to unfortunate conflicts within the University in the past in order that this ancient foundation may put these troubles behind it.
The Bill reshapes the constitution of the University, and it is essential that these new arrangements should operate as soon as possible. Our hope is that the new organs of government in the University should begin to function this autumn. I hope that the University commissioners will be appointed by then and will start upon their difficult tasks. By then—that is to say, this autumn—the membership of the reconstituted University Court should also be determined, apart from the heads of the two colleges. We certainly aim to have the three assessors appointed to the Court by the Crown as soon as possible. The college councils in Dundee and St. Andrews should be substantially in being by the autumn; and, lastly, I sincerely hope that

it will be possible to appoint the new principal soon, as this appointment is, of course, vital to the structure.
The success of the new regimé will depend largely on the work of the commissioners, of the new principal and the college heads, and of the Court and college councils, and upon their relationship with each other. I am sure that all in the House wish them well in the work ahead. I have no reason to suppose that, with good will and common-sense, success will not crown their efforts, but this Bill alone and the new constitutional organs set up under the Bill will not achieve the results we all desire without a harmonious relationship in and around the University.
There must be the desire and the will to make it work. I think that is all important, and great responsibility for achieving the desired results and success rest upon the shoulders of the leaders of local opinion. I urge and trust that in Dundee past grievances, however justified they were felt to be, will be forgotten, and that the energies of all will be devoted to ensuring that Dundee plays its vital part in the life of the reconstituted University.

7.29 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: On Second Reading I ventured the opinion that this might be regarded not so much as an act of legislation as a peace treaty in what has been a very long academic civil war. I ventured the hope that our deliberations in the House would be more successful in the conclusions reached than were the previous deliberations at the end of the last century, because some of the discord which has taken place during the present century was the result of a very bad Act of Parliament at that time.
We are all aware that the root of these discords lies in three things. First of all, there is the geographical difference between St. Andrews and Dundee. St. Andrews is one of our most beautiful and most ancient towns; Dundee is a typical example of modern industrialism in Scotland; and there is a very big gap in atmosphere between the two as well as a very serious geographical gap in the estuary of the Tay. I do not think that this Bill or anything else can do very much to bridge that until, perhaps, we get at long last our road bridge over the


Tay, which may help to solve that particular problem which lies behind our present troubles.
The second reason why we have this peace treaty before us is undoubtedly the preoccupation the late very able principal of St. Andrews University had with St. Andrews to the exclusion of the interests of Dundee. I wholeheartedly agree with the Secretary of State in wishing well to the new principal. He will have a difficult task. I am sure we all hope he will have the necessary co-operation and good will to fulfil that task.
The third reason for the discord, and the reason which concerns this Bill, lies in the very faulty task of reorganisation that was undertaken at the end of the last century. We had some most unsuccessful machinery, of a type not unknown in some parts of the British Empire. We had in Dundee a council which had plenty of opportunity to discuss matters pertaining to the welfare of university education in Dundee, but did not have any power to carry out its recommendations. It found the power rested entirely at the St. Andrews end of the University. There is no doubt that reorganisation of university education was necessary in that respect to bring about the harmony we all desire.
I do think that it has not been sufficiently appreciated during our debates on this subject what sacrifices Dundee is making in regard to this reorganisation. It is very important to remember that a university, wherever it may be, depends for its success upon the devotion and work of many public-spirited men interested in education. Despite the very great difficulties which have existed between St. Andrews and Dundee, Dundee has enjoyed a great deal of devoted public service from men and women in the city.
If we reject, as the Royal Commission rejected, the idea of an independent university for Dundee, then a re-organisation was, of course, necessary. But let us remember that the existing institutional machinery in Dundee is being wiped out. Under this re-organisation the Board of Governors of Dundee University College disappear, and the Council of Dundee University College is radically reconstituted; the Dundee School of Economics

is swallowed up completely in the reorganisation, and its name disappears. If we use the metaphor of a peace treaty we should say that this means that under this re-organisation the Dundee part of the University is being asked for an unconditional surrender of its present institutions.
In these circumstances, I think it must be said that the title under which this new arrangement is to go forward is quite inadequate if we are to get the kind of harmony we require. The Secretary of State has said with a great deal of truth that the Bill itself will not be any good without good will between St. Andrews and Dundee, and I must express my serious misgivings that the Secretary of State has not seen fit to make his contribution towards that harmony by recognising the inadequacy of the present title of the University, and has refused to take steps to have a title which would recognise the new partnership which is being created.
He has had a very real and very easy opportunity to take such steps because since we last discussed this Bill in Comimttee two very important gestures of good will have been made from opposite sides of the Tay. All of us on both sides of the House have had representations from Dundee Corporation and from Dundee College Council recognising the inadequacy of the present title of the University and expressing the hope that harmony could be achieved if that inadequacy were put right, and, at the same time, on the other side of the Tay we have had the University Court indicate to the Secretary of State their view that they would not oppose that particular point of view if asked about it. Those were very important steps, and I do think that, since the whole purpose of the Bill is to make peace between the two sides of the University, it is a very great pity that that chance was lost.
One must remember that even while we were on the Committee stage of the Bill, Dundee Corporation and the Dundee College Council were refusing to retreat from their stand for an independent university and were refusing to make any compromises at all. Now we have had this very important concession, and I think it is a great pity indeed that it was rejected. I regret it was not possible to discuss that on the Report stage. Responsibility, of course, lies, and must be seen


squarely to lie, on the Secretary of State, because as you yourself, Mr. Speaker, said, if he had seen his way to accept those very important gestures of conciliation that were made to him, we could at this stage of the Bill not only have given it our blessing—because we are all bound to do that, of course—but, what is more important, we could have done so with some real hope of its success.

Mr. Speaker: I have been very patient with the hon. Member because I understand his deep interest in this matter, but it is really out of order to discuss on Third Reading an Amendment which was not selected on Report.

Mr. Thomson: I appreciate your patience, Mr. Speaker. I was trying to discuss the inadequacy of the present title in relation to achieving the purpose of the Bill.
I should like to add that I think it is a great pity that hon. Members on the other side of the House have dealt with this matter in the way that they have. We on this side have throughout not treated it in any way as a party matter. The record of voting in Committee will show that. We have not had the same evidence from the other side. The Secretary of State, of course, took the point of view he was entitled to take, that he must stick to the recommendations of the Tedder Commission, but he completely destroyed his own case by accepting the view of the Committee that the status of the Rector as the students' representative should be safeguarded.

Mr. J. Stuart: The hon. Gentleman will find that I voted against that, but was defeated.

Mr. Thomson: That is exactly the point that I am about to make. Both sides of the Committee joined in defeating the Government on this particular position, but the Government gracefully accepted defeat on that.
What I am objecting to is this. It seems to me as though the Government had quietly said to their own supporters that they would accept defeat on the position of the Rectorship, but they must not attempt to exercise a free vote on any other matters that came before us in the Committee. I am reminded of the very interesting situation which occurred following a speech by the hon. Gentleman

the Member for Edinburgh, South (Sir W. Darling). I always listen to the hon. Gentleman with very great enjoyment, but on that occasion I had an added unexpected pleasure of listening with very great agreement, because the hon. Gentleman was supporting my point of view that the present title is quite inadequate. My astonishment at his support was quite overcome by my astonishment at finding him voting against it.

Sir William Darling: I expressed an opinion which was very extensively covered by that of my right hon. Friend.

Mr. John Wheatley: Did the hon. Gentleman do the same thing in respect of the statute altering the law of rectorship?

Sir W. Darling: I am usually consistent.

Mr. Thomson: I was about to deal with the point which the hon. Gentleman made, because it interested me greatly. We all have on this side of the House a personal, although not a political respect, for the very different qualities of the Secretary of State for Scotland and his hon. Friend, but when the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South says that he prefers the rather prosaic arguments of his right hon. Friend to that of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South, he is straining our imagination a little too much.
I want to express disappointment from this side of the House that hon. Members on the other side did not see fit to press the Government on this very important issue more than they did. There has been a real opportunity missed during the last few weeks, and that means that we are going forward to the next and very important stage of putting into operation all the machinery that is contained in the Bill with less optimism than we had in the past.
Undoubtedly, we must all do our best to make this Bill work, because the purpose of the Bill, in the long run, is to meet the welfare of the young people of the east of Scotland and further afield in relation to university education. That will only be met if there is proper cooperation and proper harmony between the two sides of this University. Certainly, all of us on this side of the House


will do all that we can to make it work, despite, as I say, the opportunity which the Secretary of State has just passed over.
It must be appreciated that this will be an uphill fight for the leaders of local opinion in Dundee to whom the Secretary of State referred. He has rejected a point of view expressed strongly from many sources, including the College Council of Dundee which was unanimous on this for the first time for 30 years, and such a rare unanimity should not have been thrust aside in such a cavalier fashion. The fact that he has turned this down does not mean that the situation reverts to what it was when we were on the Committee stage of this Bill. The Dundee Corporation and the Dundee College Council, who made this gesture of conciliation, laid themselves open, as peace-makers always do, to the charge of appeasement, and, therefore, now that they have been rebuffed by the Secretary of State they are bound to feel that there will be more bitterness rather than less bitterness and the situation is made more difficult for them rather than less difficult as a result of that action.
We must face up to that and do our best to make the Bill work. I underline the appeal which I made to the Secretary of State at an earlier stage in this Bill, that in selecting the various people, those now within the patronage of the Crown Commissioners, to work the new machinery he will do his best to enrol the energies of those people in Dundee who, in the past, have devoted themselves to university education in that city, and that every effort will be made in the corporate life of the University to make sure that both St. Andrews and Dundee work together, are seen to work together, so that a new atmosphere of good will can still be created.
I look forward to that with less optimism than I did at the start of the Bill, but I think that we can make it work if we are given the proper approach in setting up the machinery. The way in which we start these things is often very important. I am heartened by the fact that the kind of work done at the Dundee end of the University is of sufficient importance, so that in the passage of time it may overcome the unfortunate suspicions of the past. There is much that is done in Dundee that cannot

possibly be done at St. Andrews for obvious reasons—medical training and dental training, and, I hope, the new school of social science which we all trust will arise out of the incorporation of the school of economics. If these sort of things are developed properly there is no doubt that Dundee will be a very important part of the University.
While expressing my regret that the Secretary of State has not done more to give symbolic recognition to this new partnership, I express my hope that everything else will be done to make this Bill a reality in terms of university education.

7.46 p.m.

Lieut-Colonel Walter Elliot: As has been said, we are now approaching the end of this long examination in the affairs of the senior University of Scotland and, indeed, one of the oldest universities in the whole of Western Europe. That is not a job which has been undertaken lightly by the Scottish Members or by those who have addressed representations to the Scottish Members and to Parliament.
We have had I think as careful and as thorough and as non-party an examination of this Measure and the problems arising out of it as I have ever known in the case of any Measure that has ever been brought before the House of Commons.

Mr. Wheatley: There is no Report stage.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: There is no Report stage because of the effect of the Ruling of the Chair, which it is not within the power of the right hon. and learned Gentleman or myself to dispute. I was going on to say that I am sure that the points made by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) raised a great deal of sympathy on both sides of the Committee. I think that it is not at all the case that the matter has been examined along party lines in the Committee stage or in the case of the Amendment which was put down or indeed in the case of the Third Reading. I can only speak for myself, but certainly the Secretary of State for Scotland has made no attempt whatever to advance his views to me nor I think to most of my hon. Friends. Indeed I can say this—

Mr. James McInnes: Or the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's views to the Secretary of State.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I am representing my views to the House of Commons, which is a senior body even to the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Mr. Wheatley: If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman felt strongly on the point on which my hon. Friend sought to have an Amendment called on Report could not he have indicated quite clearly his views and those of his hon. Friends by putting his name to the Amendment?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): The Amendment was not selected.

Mr. Wheatley: That is not the point. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman was expressing his sympathy with certain views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson). I was merely suggesting that he could have expressed that sympathy in tangible form by putting his name to an Amendment which was on the Order Paper albeit it was not selected.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not think that discussion can be carried too far because that would involve the Amendment.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I do not intend to shirk that point. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman will have a little patience, I shall develop the argument which I hope to lay before the House.
I am saying that this is a good Bill and that its title is a good title. I could of course have expressed my sympathy with the Amendment by putting my name to it, and if I had thought it a good Amendment I should have had no hesitation in doing so, even though it was against the views of the Secretary of State for Scotland—as indeed I proved in Committee when we were discussing this matter upstairs. My hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland would be the first to admit that was no slavish deference to his views in the discussions which the Scottish Grand Committee had on the Bill. That Committee examined each of these propositions entirely upon its merits.
The hon. Member for Dundee, East was, I think, a little confused in his argument when he sought to show that it was a good thing that the Secretary of State should defer to the judgment of the Committee in retaining the position of the Lord Rector but that he should seek to reverse the decision of the Committee by putting down an Amendment against the decision of the Committee on Report. The hon. Member will say, of course, that new factors have emerged. New factors have emerged on both sides.
It was a little disingenuous of the hon. Member for Dundee, East not to mention the fact mentioned in the columns of the "Scotsman" today and dealt with in a leader which I also mentioned to him at an earlier stage, that the body—the student body—about whom the whole of this discussion is going on has taken the most definite line in favour of the present title, and has so represented to this House and to the Secretary of State for Scotland. The hon. Member said, quite rightly, that the purpose of the Bill is the enlargement and enhancement of the student body of the University whose affairs we are discussing—that is the object of the exercise. As I have said before—I am, perhaps, overstating the case a little—the students are the University, and the University is the students. At any rate, it is the student body which differentiates a university from a research organisation or from many other bodies of academic importance.
It is true that representations on behalf of a change in the title came from the Lord Provost and Council of Dundee and from the College Council of Dundee; and to their views we must attach great weight. It is also true, however, that the judgment of the Court was not given, as the hon. Member seemed to indicate, in favour of a neutral attitude, but as merely retaining the views which they had previously expressed—and the views which they had previously expressed were against the change of title. There have also been representations from two of the St. Andrews colleges against the suggestion of a change of title. I should not have hesitated to try to override their views, even in spite of my respect and, indeed, reverence for these old and honourable bodies, but when we get the views of those who are going to carry this title in the future, by whom it will be


made famous or be brought into disrepute, I say that their views are paramount.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: While I agree, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman said, that the students' views are paramount, surely what matters is the views not only of the students who are there at the moment, but of the students who will be there in future years and generations. Surely, if we are to provide proper university education for them, we must take a decision here as to what is most likely to promote harmony in the future.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Certainly we must do that, but if we are to prophesy about the views of future students, I am equally entitled to prophesy about the views even of the Dundee Council or of the College Council or of the "Dundee Courier." If it is a case of prophecy, my claim is as good as the hon. Member's and we can prophesy about one body as much as another. What we are mainly dealing with is the views expressed here and now, because that is all we can really bring into the argument.
Here are the views of the student body as expressed by their representatives, the Students' Representative Council of the University of St. Andrews. Let it be remembered that the student body of the University takes in also the large number of students at Dundee. This is a resolution or representation not merely from the students of St. Andrews; this is from the student body of the University, which includes the students of Dundee as well. As I say, their views have to be taken very seriously into account.
This is what they say:
The Students' Representative Council, having accepted the recommendations in the Report of the Royal Commission on University Education in Dundee except for that concerned with the status of the Rector"—
it will be remembered that the matter was discussed and decided in the Scottish Grand Committee—
are not in favour of the further proposed changes in the University of St. Andrews Bill. In particular they deplore the proposal to change the name of the university. They are convinced that this would be repugnant to a large majority of the student body.

That is signed by the president and the vice-president of the Students' Representative Council, and by the Secretary of the St. Andrews University Bill subcommittee.
When the hon. Member for Dundee, East says, as he is perfectly entitled to say, that representation has been made in favour of a change of name, we must also take into account the fact that powerful representations, of which I think this is the most powerful, though not the only one, have been made in favour of the retention of the title and of the Bill going forward as it at present stands. Therefore, the hon. Member is perhaps a little less than just when he speaks of the Secretary of State having rebuffed those proposals and suggestions—those advances, if that term is preferred—made by the Dundee authorities.
It is not the Secretary of State who has done that. It is the University which has done that. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Oh, yes, indeed; it is the University which has done this. In a question of the title of the University, the University authorities, and particularly the University student body, are fully entitled to have their views considered; and this House should give the greatest possible weight to them when considering its final verdict on the Bill.
It would be a pity if it went forward this afternoon that this decision was being taken in any way on party lines. I am sure that that is not so. An examination of the voting in the Scottish Grand Committee will show that there was no suggestion of a party division. I am sure that had a Division been taken this afternoon, again it would be found that the party line was not taken upon it. The decision which has been taken is a decision that those in favour of a change have not succeeded in impressing their views sufficiently strongly upon the persons most concerned. That being so, I submit that the preservation of the status quo is undoubtedly justified in every possible way.
I shall not start to open the case again for the original name of the ancient University, nor argue again this afternoon the arguments which were brought forward before two Royal Commissions and which were rejected by both of them. But I go all the way with the hon. Member for Dundee, East and with others that


the City of Dundee, the activities of Dundee, and the atmosphere of Dundee are just as necessary to a great modern university as the atmosphere of St. Andrews itself.

Mrs. Jean Mann: On a point of order. An Amendment was disallowed earlier, but since then it seems that all discussion on either side of the House has centred around that Amendment.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That appears to me to be very nearly the case. The Amendment was an Amendment regarding the name of the University. That was not accepted. The discussion should not be carried too much along the lines of that Amendment.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I fully agree, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I had already passed from that line of argument, having answered as briefly as I could along the line which had already been ruled in order in the case of the hon. Member for Dundee. East.
I was next arguing in favour of the utmost incorporation of the spirit and atmosphere of the great industrial city of Dundee into the University which is now under discussion. That is not a question of a title, as we all know. That is a question, as the hon. Member for Dundee, East says, of the increased participation of Dundee in the governing of the University and in the conduct of the University itself. Great steps are made towards that in the Bill now under discussion. The representation on the University Court is shared between St. Andrews and Dundee although far more than half the students are St. Andrews students. Many of the schools which have been developed in St. Andrews are in future to be developed in Dundee—notably, the teaching of education, of the social sciences and, when practicable, the very flourishing school of pre-clinical medicine.
All these are developments which will go on and which will prove to those on both sides of the Tay the desire that there should be one University at Tayside and not two universities and in particular that it should be a university of a merely medieval flavour and antiquity but a university grappling with the enormous problems of our modern age. There I say quite frankly that in some ways the late principal, much as he did for university

education and much as he did for the University of St. Andrews, was in some ways at fault. I do not think he fully appreciated the drive and the thrust that would come to the affairs of the University by a greater incorporation of the work of the industrial city so closely at its side.
Strong argument has been heard in favour of the residential system. I think that may be pushed too far. I am sure the hon. Member for Warrington (Dr. Morgan)—who I may describe as my hon. Friend—will not demur from that because he and I graduated at a university where the residential system was practically unknown. I think it holds a danger for Scots; they do not flourish well in captivity. Too thorough a residential system is not in keeping with our national character. The rough life of the town and the key of the streets is also a necessity for us—a view which Mr. Weller, senior, put forward very forcibly in his description of the education of his son, the more famous Sam. The key of the streets encourages the student to run about and learn for himself. That they can learn in Dundee, but not, I think, in St. Andrews.
The student body of St. Andrews is beginning to be drawn from sources far outside the Kingdom of Fife and neighbouring districts. It is drawing students not merely from its own doorstep but from England, from the whole of the Commonwealth and, indeed, from farther afield still. These are the people whose interests we have to study. These are the people whom we have to seek to inspire; these are the people to whom I think the new constitution will give the best possible chance.
It is a commonplace to say that on the university education of this country a great deal of its future depends. We can scarcely hear a debate on unemployment, on the Empire—or indeed, on finance, as shown this afternoon—without speaker after speaker stressing the need for a greater body of highly educated technical people, the captains and noncommissioned officers of industry, who will take up and carry forward the great discoveries of science. That cannot be done without a great enlarging of the university education of this country.
In that also the University of St. Andrews has played a most honourable part. The work of its chemistry school,


for instance, is famous all over the world. I do not say that that is enough in itself; it has still to go further. Among the modern universities the universities of Scotland stand very high indeed. They ought to stand still higher. Certainly the blend of the classical studies and schools of St. Andrews, with the practical industrial knowledge of Dundee, will give its students the very best possible chance. This is more than the future of a university that we are discussing, more than the future of Scotland—it is the future of the whole Commonwealth because, unless we can extend and intensify higher education, then our Commonwealth will wither away. It will not even keep its place. It will recede from the high position in which it stands. These things, we hope, will be helped by the Bill now under discussion.
I think that a good Bill has been framed, and good things are to be done under it. We are launching today a great enterprise. I am sure that all of us would wish to give it our heartiest support and to see that it slides down into deep water when it comes off the launching slips; and goes forward, a great ship, to carry the name not merely of Tayside, but of the whole of Scotland, through the oceans of the world.

8.7 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: I hoped that when we came to the Third Reading of this Bill we would have a Measure which would provide every possibilty of success for those desires that I think both sides of the House hold—the desire to ensure that this new set-up in university life in St. Andrews and Dundee should flourish in future and the desire that the old sores of more than 50 years' duration would disappear. I thought there was a possibility of that. I hope that the possibility has not quite disappeared, but I feel that the Secretary of State for Scotland had a very great opportunity which he has let slip.
I was astonished at some of the points made by the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot). The University is to be known as the University of St. Andrews. I relate my remarks to the present and to the future name of this University. There have been suggestions that it might be changed. The right hon. and gallant

Member gave reasons why he agreed with the name as it is in the Bill. He seemed to push completely aside all representations that have come from any body, whether it was an important body like the City Council of Dundee or the university colleges. The only representation to which he attached any importance was the representation of the student body.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The hon. Lady is not entitled to say that. If she will look at the report of my speech she will see that I mentioned the views of the colleges—which, by the way, were in favour of the view I was expressing—and also the view of Dundee, which was against the view I was expressing.

Miss Herbison: It seems to me that if an hon. Member uses the word "paramount" he is, in effect, pushing aside the other points of view that have been expressed. As far as I know "paramount" means overriding. Even if we had accepted that, this new set-up in university education on both sides of the Tay is of the greatest importance to the future of students in Scotland and the future of students who come from the Commonwealth or any part of the world.
If that education is to be of the best and of the highest it can only be so if we have the greatest harmony of working on both sides of the University, the part in Dundee and the part in St. Andrews. Even if we accept the point made by the right hon. and gallant Member that the interests of the students are paramount I feel, if we are to look to the future of students of this great University and if we are putting their interests in a paramount position, that we should not be satisfied with the present title of this Bill.
The Secretary of State himself, in his short Third Reading speech, said that the object of the Bill was to remove constitutional defects. I had hoped that the object of the Bill was not only to remove constitutional defects but to bring about harmony in the university colleges on both sides of the Tay. The right hon. Gentleman also added that we should not achieve the object of the Bill without harmonious relations.
I agree that the Lord Provost and the Council of Dundee might be accused of appeasement. What they will be accused of now I do not know. But these men certainly pocketed a great deal of their


pride in trying to find a solution which would bring about the harmonious working we all have a right to expect. They pocketed their pride, which is a very difficult thing for Scotsmen to do; but they did it, and it has been of no avail. I wish that the Secretary of State had grasped and made good use of this wonderful opportunity to bring about what we all desire.
I was also astonished at another statement made by the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove. He spoke of the medieval traditions of this University, one of the oldest in Western Europe; of the need to get away from the purely academic and the chances of doing that on the Dundee side of the Tay. Would it not have been another example of the desire to do the very thing for which he is asking if this virile industrial part had been incorporated into the name of this Bill? I was surprised when the right hon. and gallant Gentleman said—I am paraphrasing him and he will correct me if I am wrong—that if the objects of the Bill were not realised there was a chance of the Commonwealth withering away. Frankly. I think that is a lot of nonsense.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Well, really! If I may say so, this is more a psalm than a paraphrase. In so far as the ideals of this Bill and the other university education improvements of this country are not recognised, then the Commonwealth will wither away. I do not resile from that for one moment. Unless we develop to the fullest the intelligence of this country and the rest of the Empire then certainly our Commonwealth will wither away.

Miss Herbison: The right hon. and gallant Member may change it from paraphrasing to a psalm, but in the words he has added he has made it perfectly clear that my paraphrasing was very near what he thought.
I think of other people in this country who have helped to make our Commonwealth and a very great part of what we believe in. There are the engineers, who go from the Clyde and from other parts of Great Britain. There are other people, the ordinary manual workers, who go out and they all play a big part in the welding together of the people of our Commonwealth. I would be the last to suggest that we do not need the most highly educated engineers possible, and if we do

then we need harmony in our universities. We may have a greater chance of achieving that harmony if we accede to the requests which have been made. No matter how the right hon. and gallant Gentleman argues he cannot prove in any way that the decision of himself and his hon. Friends is a correct one.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman also said, to my astonishment, that it was not the Secretary of State who had rebuffed the people who had made representations. That, again, is nonsense. This Bill concerns a matter which has to be decided by hon. Members of this House, with all the evidence before us. The Secretary of State had that evidence and he was the one who rebuffed these people. We cannot by any stretch of imagination say that the rebuffing was done either by the students of St. Andrews or any other body of professors or students.
Despite all I have said I hope that this great University, irrespective of its name, will have a good future. I hope that on both sides of the Tay university education will flourish, and that, particularly on the Dundee side, there will be a great expansion of what I might term the highest technical education possible. More than at any time before, this nation of our needs the very best education it is possible to get. All hon. Members on this side hope that, in spite of the rebuffs, everything possible will be done by all the public-spirited people in Dundee and St. Andrews to make the provisions in this Bill work and to bring about the best and finest in university education in this part of Scotland.

8.18 p.m.

Mr. John Strachey: I wish to add only a few words of general welcome to the Bill. I have never agreed with the many citizens of Dundee who wish for a separate university. I can understand that wish, which is a natural and, in a sense, a very proper wish for a great city such as Dundee, but as soon as I attempted to look into the problem it always seemed to me, on balance, that the case for one university rather than two in this part of North-East Scotland was an overwhelmingly strong one—though I must not forget Aberdeen University.
One first-rate university is far better than two second-rate universities, and, as is indicated in the Tedder Report, that


would be a real danger if we attempted to create two universities. We should have two universities inferior to the one we are hoping to make now. In the sense in which the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) has put it, we are doing nothing less in this Bill than attempting to make a new university. We are attempting to reconstitute one of the most ancient universities in Europe on a new basis; and that is not only a very important but a very difficult and delicate thing to do.
We are trying to marry more fully than has been married before the Dundee side of university education to the St. Andrews side. It is fully acknowledged in all parts of the House that that marriage has been sadly imperfect up till now. That there is a need for it is fully admitted. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove admitted that wonderful, rich and mellow as are the traditions of St. Andrews, something has been lacking there. It has not been a perfect institution of higher learning of recent years. There has been a need for a fuller participation in the life of the university of the thought and activity such as can be provided alone by a thriving industrial city such as Dundee. That, again, is common ground.
We are trying to do something very necessary, very important, but also very difficult—to marry those very different traditions—the medieval tradition, in the best sense of that word, of St. Andrews and the highly industrial, highly modern, pushing tradition of what is certainly today the thriving industrial City of Dundee with its old industries and its new industries of many sorts which bring a highly technical flavour to its interest in higher learning. If that marriage is to be brought off—and it has been tried before, and it has not altogether succeeded—surely we ought to neglect no step, even though it may seem a small step, which can help really to make it succeed.
There can be no doubt of the need for the co-operation of Dundee and its leading citizens, not only in their private capacities but as members of the local authority. After all, a modern university is intimately connected with the local authority of the centre of population to which it is adjacent. Therefore, the views and the feeling of members of both

political parties on that local authority are not something which ought merely to be taken into consideration: they should be one of the major considerations in the whole matter. That is ten times more so when we have this long and rather sad story of the past relationship of the City of Dundee and its local authority with the University of St. Andrews.
Yet we are faced at this stage in the progress of the Bill with the fact that, as we on this side of the House see it, there can be little doubt that, judging by the representations which we have all received, the possibility of the full or early success of this attempt to reconstitute one of the great seats of learning in Scotland is being jeopardised by the retention of what one of my hon. Friends called the inadequate title of the University. I put it to the House that it is not only an inadequate title; it is a downright inappropriate title for the University as it will be. I justify the word, "inappropriate," from the first lines of the Preamble. We are considering:
An Act to make provision for the reorganisation of University education in St. Andrews and Dundee. …
It seems to me that then to go on throughout the Bill to call what is in a sense the new university simply the University of St. Andrews is manifestly not only inadequate but inappropriate and inaccurate.
The representations of the citizens of Dundee which have been very strong on that point are only what could be expected. Why is it that the efforts made from this side of the House by my colleague the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) have been met with a flat refusal by the Government? Frankly, I do not know. I do not believe that the House or the Scottish Standing Committee were ever told the reason for the blank refusal. We were certainly not told in what I can only call the somewhat perfunctory speech with which the Secretary of State moved the Third Reading.
It is true that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Sir W. Darling) told us just now that in Committee his vote was changed by the torrent of eloquence of the Secretary of State at the last moment. That is most interesting, but I do not know how it happened. I have never heard any real argument except


the one put forward by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove, that the students would not like it if the name was changed. I agree with him that that is a point which ought to be considered, along with other recommendations, but are we seriously to be told, as he told us, that the wishes of the generation of students passing through the University at this moment ought to be the decisive consideration on the title against which no other consideration is allowed to have any weight at all?
That is a very strange doctrine, yet it seems to me that it is the only substantial reason which we have been given for this refusal. Otherwise, it seems to rest on an idea that, after all, it is a very old and honoured name as it is—the University of St. Andrews—and that it certainly ought not to be changed. I cannot feel, in view of the important considerations on the other side, that that can adequately weigh with the House.
The matter has, in fact, been decided on strict party lines. The right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove said that in the decisions of the Committee we could find no evidence that they went on party lines. The only trace we can find is that all the Conservative Members voted one way and all the Labour Members but one voted the other way. If that is not a vote on party lines I do not know what is. There is no doubt that this has been decided by the wish of the Government without due explanation that we can understand. I cannot help thinking that they are marring what we frankly admit to be a most valuable Measure. It is one which will do good, and is on the right lines. They are marring it, not in a major particular, but in a small matter, but which is still one of very great psychological importance.
The other alternative suggestion would not greatly change matters, but it would have given that measure of concession and of recognition to the Dundee interest which would have made all the difference in encouraging them to drop their own prejudices and give the scheme a good start. Therefore, we regret very much indeed that we are being met by this blank refusal.
Having said all that, it only remains for me to say—and, of course, I know that I speak for my, hon. Friend—that, in so far as we can influence our friends in

Dundee, very disappointed though they are in this matter, we shall influence them to our maximum extent to give their fullest co-operation in the working of the reconstituted University. I am sure that, however much they may regret the decision of the Government, it will be possible to sink old bitternesses and make this new University the ornament of Scottish higher education which it is intended to be.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. A. Woodburn: As the person who started the long chain of circumstances which has finished with the Bill now about to pass to the Statute Book, I should like to wish it God-speed and to hope that it succeeds in its aim. I am rather sorry, however, that the last debate on the subject has been marred a little by what seems to have been a failure of courtesy, unusual in the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland, in not explaining to the House his reasons for deciding to maintain the title as it was originally drafted in the Bill.

Mr. J. Stuart: That Amendment was ruled out of order, and so I took it that the subject was not discussable.

Mr. Woodburn: I am surprised that, with his experience of this House, the right hon. Gentleman could not have exercised some ingenuity and have been able to give the reasons for the title as it is.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think there has been a good deal of ingenuity. Of course, it is in order to discuss the title of the Bill, because it is in the Bill, but what would not be in order would be to discuss the Amendment which would substitute another title.

Mr. Woodburn: I recognise that perfectly, and all I would say is that a good deal of the disappointment which has been expressed by many hon. Members could have been avoided had the right hon. Gentleman given his reasons for deciding, after hearing all the representations, to put the Bill forward in its present form, and not to add his name to the Amendment which, as Mr. Deputy-Speaker has said, would have put it in order immediately.
There were very important bodies, such as the town council of Dundee and other


bodies, interested in the matter, and it does seem a pity that it was left to the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) to try to invent reasons, because, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman himself said, the Secretary of State did not give him any reasons. Therefore, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman imagines reasons in order to justify what the Secretary of State has done, and puts them forward as if he had made the decision, which, in fact, he did not make.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I put forward evidence, and I was speaking only for myself, but that there was evidence and that it was clear nobody can deny.

Mr. Woodburn: In any case, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman succeeded in putting forward some kind of case, however deficient it might have been as compared with the other one.
We hope that the Bill will succeed. One of the great failures, and it has been the case from the beginning, is that St. Andrews never seemed to make any gesture of friendship to Dundee. They never held out the hand of friendship, but have always looked down their noses at Dundee. There was an opportunity to get rid of that attitude, and I regret very much that it has not been taken.
Enough has been said about this Bill, and we all wish it to go forward to the Statute Book in the hope that, in spite of that, all these sores will be healed, and that a new principal will be appointed who will be able to bring these two bodies together, and who will also be the principal of a joint University and not be the lop-sided principal of one-half. The right hon. Gentleman has said that the principal was to be appointed soon, and I gathered from that that it would be before the autumn. I hope that the principal will be appointed long before the autumn, so that he will have the chance of gathering the threads together in order to see that the University starts with its proper pattern when beginning its new life.
I am sorry that there has been so much dwelling on the past; I should have liked to have heard something about the future as well as the past. The University starts

its new life with the great advantage of having, as its basic subjects, chemistry and science, subjects in which it has an honoured reputation throughout the world. It has that tradition, and if it carries on that good work it can yet build itself into one of our finest universities and be second to none in Scotland.

8.35 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Henderson Stewart): I have noticed that without exception every hon. Member who has spoken in this debate has ended by saying that he thinks this is a good and proper Measure, that he wishes it God speed and hopes that the two sides of the University will, in future, work together in the utmost harmony. I am sure that that represents the considered view of all parts of the House, and it is in that spirit of harmony that I venture to take up one or two of the main points which have arisen in the discussion.
I will take, first, the title of the University as it now is. I hope that I shall not be regarded as wishing to raise the temper of the debate, but I think that my right hon. Friend has been treated a little unkindly about the matter of the title. The reason why the title has been maintained is because my right hon. Friend found that the evidence and the weight of opinion in favour of its retention was overwhelming. I venture to say that I do not think that anybody else who was in the position of my right hon. Friend could have come to any other decision.
It is quite true that the Dundee Corporation and the recently reconstituted Council of the University College of Dundee made representations proposing a change in the name. But, since then, my right hon. Friend has received the strongest representations, not only from the students, as the right hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) seemed to think, but from the students through their Representative Council, from the teachers of the University through the United College and St. Mary's College, and, in addition, from the President of the Senatus who has said that the official Senate view must be taken as being that there should be no change, and from the graduates through the General Council and the Old Red Gown Club.
As the House knows very well, the decision of the University Court has never altered on this matter. The Court decided a good time ago that it accepted the Commission's Report, and the recent meeting of the Court to which the hon. Member referred passed a minute which I see was reported in the "Dundee Courier" on 7th July. The opening words of that minute were:
While divided as to the merits of the proposed change …
Therefore, I think it would be wrong to suppose that the University Court is doing other than standing by its first decision.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House whether it is or is not a fact that the University Court, in the minute from which he quotes, said that if asked for representations they would state that they had no representations to make?

Mr. Stewart: That is perfectly true, but it does not alter the facts which I am describing. Therefore, my right hon. Friend had all these bodies of the utmost importance within the University calling upon him to stand by the title. In addition to that, he had the Tedder Commission's Report and the Cooper Committee's Report both unanimously recommending the retention of the present title. What could my right hon. Friend do in the face of that overwhelming evidence but stand by the title?

Miss Herbison: It seems to me that all the representations made to keep the name as it is came from the St. Andrews side. That was to be expected. Can the hon. Gentleman give us the name of any body at all from Dundee?

Mr. Stewart: I am sure that the hon. Lady is not correct, because the students represent Dundee as well as St. Andrews. The Senatus represents the Dundee as well as the St. Andrews staff. I said earlier on that the recently reconstituted Council of the University College of Dundee represented that the name should be changed, but that nearly every other body—students, teachers, colleges—in the University have urged my right hon. Friend to stand by the Recommendations of the two bodies which examined this matter before. I therefore ask hon. Members, with the greatest earnestness,

to believe that in those circumstances no Secretary of State could have done other than my right hon. Friend has done in order to maintain the harmony which was gained—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] May I repeat—the harmony which was gained when the Report of the Tedder Commission was accepted all round at the beginning. I think that hon. Gentlemen opposite—

Mr. Wheatley: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it would have been more courteous to hon. Members if they had had this explanation in the opening speech of the Secretary of State, and before hon. Members had made their contributions, because they are now precluded from commenting upon the remarks of the hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Stewart: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is entitled to what view he likes in the matter. My right hon. Friend has explained perfectly clearly to the House that, at the beginning, and before the Third Reading took place, this matter was not in order. My right hon. Friend thought that a discussion of the title, as to whether it should be another title, was equally out of order. It was plain to the House, surely, that he was here and I was here as his Under-Secretary ready to answer the needs of the House and to provide any material that the House desired. That is the simple position.
It is in order to maintain harmony. Hon. Members who know this University will realise that the Report of the Tedder Commission was not a thing easily to be accepted by the University Court, which represented of course Dundee as well as St. Andrews. They accepted it, although many of them felt a little uneasy about this or that point; but they took the view that, by and large, the Tedder scheme produced a balance. I think that everyone, as I believe the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) said in the earlier debate, agreed that it produced a balance. I feel, and I hope that the House will in its wisdom feel, that the balance is worth maintaining. It is in order not to upset that balance that my right hon. Friend came to this decision.
The other point which was raised by the hon. Member for Dundee, East was one with which one ought to deal. He


put it perfectly plainly, and I am sure with great sincerity and fairness. He suggested that Dundee was getting rather a raw deal out of all this. We recognise that certain charges are to be imposed upon Dundee, and that certain institutions—honourable institutions to which, as he said, splendid men have devoted their lives—are to end; but so it is with St. Andrews. Some institutions there are losing their status.
Let me remind hon. Gentlemen—I do not want to over-emphasise anything, but I will recite them—one or two of the alterations effected. The principalship of the University is now to be separated from the United College. I am sure that Dundee will think that that is a good thing. The reconstituted Court is given a stronger numerical representation from Dundee. A new Dundee college is established, including not only the University College and the School of Economics but also the Adyanced Medical and Dental Schools. A new Dundee College Council is set up, with only one member drawn from outside Dundeee, charged with all those powers of the Court and Senatus which properly admit of local exercise.
I think, that Dundee will agree that these are not insubstantial benefits, and I hope that Dundee will take the fullest advantage of these beneficial changes and will play a full and unfettered part in the University.

Mr. Thomson: I appreciate the point which the hon. Gentleman is making, but will he appreciate that the Dundee representation on these new bodies tends very often to be an academic representation and therefore to be under the influence of the Senatus? Will he, therefore, do all he can to make the lay representation from Dundee the strongest that he possibly can?

Mr. Stewart: Yes, I understand that. As I pointed out in Committee, the Council of the College in Dundee will have
six other persons, not being teachers in the University, appointed in such manner as may be prescribed by ordinances made by the Commissioners appointed under this Act.
This will afford to Dundee and to the outside non-academic organisations of

Dundee the opportunity of electing six really competent, strong, eager men.
The hon. Member pleaded, as he did eloquently on an earlier stage, that in this newly constituted University, Dundee should really be given the opportunity to play its part and that whatever ceremonials could take place in Dundee should take place there. He said that he hoped that the services of the men and women in Dundee who have given devoted service in the past would be employed now, and that in every way Dundee would be encouraged and indeed urged to play a greater and nobler part. That is precisely the sentiment of my right hon. Friend.
I have lived with St. Andrews University on both sides of the Tay longer and more closely, if I may say so, than any other hon. Member of this House. The University of St. Andrews is in my constituency, and Dundee is not far from my old home. This is, therefore, a moving moment for me—to see the Third Reading of this Bill. In my capacity as the local Member of Parliament and in my capacity as the assistant of my right hon. Friend, I hope and pray that what we do tonight may end in the creation of a greater, a better and more harmonious University from which both sides of the Tay may benefit.

Mr. Wheatley: Will the hon. Gentleman say something about the appointment of the principal and when that will take place?

Mr. J. Stuart: If I may reply, we must wait until the Bill receives the Royal Assent before we can act.

Mr. Wheatley: The hon. Gentleman said in his speech that it would take place soon and he referred to other appointments that would be made near October. Can we hear from him whether the appointment of principal will be made before October or when he proposes to make the appointments once the Bill has received the Royal Assent?

Mr. Stuart: As soon as possible, but, of course, I cannot make the necessary approaches until the Bill has received the Royal Assent.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

HOSPITAL ENDOWMENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords]

As amended (in Standing Committee), considered.

8.48 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Commander T. D. Galbraith): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
As the Bill was debated on Second Reading in the Scottish Grand Committee it may be that the House will wish me to explain its purpose very briefly. Hon. Members will remember that under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947, the Hospital Endowments Commission was set up to inquire into existing endowments and to prepare schemes for the reallocation of endowments if that were thought to be necessary. That was because the main objects for which many of these endowments were given were met by the setting up of the National Health Service.
In the course of its inquiries the Commission came to the conclusion that the income from the endowments was greater than could be usefully employed in providing additional amenities for Scottish hospitals, to which for all practical purposes they were now limited. They accordingly recommended to my right hon. Friend that some of the income should be made available for medical research. These recommendations, as the House will remember, were published in a White Paper, Cmd. 8615, and this Bill gives effect to them.
The Bill has two closely related purposes, first to provide for the setting up by my right hon. Friend of a Scottish Hospital Endowments Research Trust, and, second, to empower the Hospital Endowments Commission to transfer endowments to that Trust. The total capital, that is the market value of the endowments with which the Endowments Commission are concerned, amounted at the appointed day to £13 million, and the intention is that a proportion of these endowments shall be transferred from the boards of management in which they were vested under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947, to the Research Trust.
In our discussions in the Scottish Grand Committee some concern was expressed that the Commission should not have an unlimited power to transfer endowments, and as during the Committee stage that appeared to be more or less the general opinion, my right hon. Friend put down an Amendment, which is now incorporated in the Bill, putting a limit on the endowments which may be transferred to the Trust.
Hon. Members who took part in the discussion will remember that the proviso to Clause 2 has the effect of limiting the transfer of endowments to an aggregate of such amount as in the year ended 31st March, 1952, produced an income of £120,000. The precise amount to be transferred within that limited figure will be a matter for the Endowments Commission in the course of their work of making schemes for the various endowments.
It is well known that money is by no means the only factor limiting medical research, but I submit that in giving this Bill its Third Reading we shall be making it possible to establish in Scotland a Medical Research Fund which will be of the greatest possible value in the years to come. I therefore express the hope that the House will give this Bill a unanimous Third Reading.

8.53 p.m.

Mr. A. Woodbnm: I think it is right that the Joint Under-Secretary of State should have explained the purpose of this Bill because under our special Scottish procedure this Bill has been discussed in the Scottish Grand Committee, with respect both to its Second Reading principle and its Committee stage. Therefore, this is really the first time that the Bill has come before the House to be discussed with respect to its principle and details.
This is fortunately a Bill about which there is absolutely no disagreement in any part of the House. The origins of the Bill were in a debate which took place in the Scottish Grand Committee in 1948, which disclosed that Scotland was showing an increasing incidence of tuberculosis which alarmed the Members considerably and led to an investigation into the reason why that should be so in Scotland when, so far as could be ascertained, in every other country the figures were decreasing.
The Government of the day immediately provided an extra 1,000 houses, before the supply of aluminium houses was brought to an end, in order to relieve overcrowding in cases in which tuberculosis was discovered. It was recognised that overcrowding at least made infection more likely, and it was felt that if that amount of segregation could take place there was a possibility of making some contribution to a solution of the problem.
Fortunately, the following year when investigation took place, it was discovered that the incidence was not as great overall in every class as had been thought, and that it was confined to two special classes—young women, and men over 53. It was clearly necessary to have a far greater investigation into this problem than was possible by the mere collection of statistics. It led to consultations with the Medical Research Council, with a view to having the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Secretary of State merged with some body that would not only act as an advisory committee to the Secretary of State but would be able to undertake the supervision and guidance of research in Scotland.
I want to make it clear that there is no intention of interfering in any way with the work of the Medical Research Council. This Bill is a complement to them, not a substitution for them, and the Council will be represented on the body that guides research in Scotland. Scotland has a great reputation in the medical world, and it is right that she should do research in this field. The money which is now being transferred will enable Scotland to play her part in producing people who have the capacity to do this work.
Research knows no frontiers. Like peace, it is indivisible, and we shall be playing our part, in co-operation with other countries. We shall certainly gain from the work of other countries, and it may be that we, in our turn, shall be able to help. In any case, research should be an essential part of the training of students in all kinds of colleges. This body will have the opportunity of stimulating research, finding out the

people who are capable of it but who are not carrying it out, and giving them tasks to undertake, with a view to developing on lines which are not at present being tackled.
We have endorsed this Bill from its very beginning. It started during the Administration of 1948, the proceedings have continued during this Administration, and it has fallen to a Secretary of State of a different political colour to the one in office in 1948 to bring this matter to its fruition. It is a Scottish matter, carried through by Members of all parties. We give it our blessing, and we hope that out of the seeds that are being planted and fertilised by this endowment there will come great fruit, in respect of the health of the people and the gaining of greater knowledge by our medical and surgical people in Scotland.

8.57 p.m.

Mr. James McInnes: I want to associate myself with the observations made by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn). I welcome the Bill as it is presented to us at this stage. At one time there were grave fears that the intention was to give the Secretary of State unlimited power to take over the endowment funds which belonged to these hospitals. Following representations made to him during the Committee stage, in the Scottish Grand Committee, I am glad to see that the Secretary of State has taken the opportunity of eliminating such fears as existed not only among Members of the Committee but among many of the hospitals in Scotland which were responsible for part of the administration of these endowment funds.
I am glad that the Secretary of State, by stipulating the sum that is to be taken annually from the endowment funds and limited to the Hospital Endowments Research Trust, has clarified the position. I want to express my appreciation to the right hon. Gentleman for the gesture he has made.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with an Amendment.

EDUCATION (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL

Lords Amendment considered.

New Clause.—(PROVISIONS WITH RESPECT TO TRANSPORT OF CERTAIN PUPILS.)

Lords Amendment: In page 9, line 41, at end, insert new Clause "A":
(1) Subject to the provisions of this section. a local education authority shall have power, for the purpose of facilitating the attendance at any school or county college or at any course or class provided in pursuance of a scheme of further education in force for their area of pupils for whose transport free of charge no arrangements are made by the authority under subsection (1) of section fifty-five of the principal Act, to permit such pupils, in consideration of the payment to the authority of fares of such amounts as appear to them to be reasonable, to be carried in a motor vehicle used for providing transport in pursuance of arrangements made under that subsection:
Provided that—

(a) the powers conferred by this subsection on a local education authority shall not be exercisable by them in respect of any part of the route on which a vehicle runs in pursuance of any such arrangements, being a part outside the special area, except with the written consent of the licensing authority for public service vehicles in whose area that part of the route is situate, and shall not be exercisable by them in respect of any part of such a route, being a part within the special area, except with the written consent both of the licensing authority for public service vehicles for that area and of the British Transport Commission; and
(b) the licensing authority for public service vehicles for any area shall not give their consent to an exercise by a local education authority of the powers conferred on them by this section unless they are satisfied that there are no other transport facilities which meet the reasonable needs of the pupils proposed to be carried in exercise of those powers.

(2) A motor vehicle used for providing transport in pursuance of arrangements made under the said subsection (1) shall not, for the purposes of Part IV of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, be deemed, in the case of a vehicle belonging to a local education authority, to be a public service vehicle, or, in any other case, to be a stage carriage or express carriage, by reason only of the carriage therein of a person who is charged a fare by virtue of the foregoing subsection.
(3) In this section the expression "special area" has the meaning assigned to it by subsection (1) of section one hundred and seven of the London Passenger Transport Act, 1933.

9.0 p.m.

The Minister of Education (Miss Florence Horsbrugh): I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
The House will remember that in Committee my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Ashton) moved new Clauses which were designed to enable local education authorities to fill up vacant places in their school buses by pupils who would pay fares. I had representations on this subject from hon. Members on both sides of the House, and the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), at the end of the Committee stage, said that he, too, had had representations from many of his right hon. and hon. Friends.
I had at that time to suggest that the Clauses should be withdrawn so that we might see how they could be better drafted. If the House will remember, an Amendment was put on the Order Paper in my name on the Report stage, but, unfortunately, even then the drafting was not correct and did not cover further technical points. The Amendment had to be withdrawn. A change was made and the Amendment was moved and accepted in another place.
The purpose of the new Clause is simple although I must say that, as it stands, it is an extremely long and complex Clause. That seems to be necessary even in dealing with such a small change as that which we suggest. The purpose is to empower a local education authority to fill any vacant places in a bus provided for the free transport of pupils under Section 55 (1) of the Education Act, 1944, by taking other pupils and charging a reasonable fare.
I want to make it absolutely clear that the Clause neither removes from nor adds to the duties and powers in regard to the provision of free transport which authorities already have under Section 55 (1) of the 1944 Act. It gives authorities a new power in relation to fare paying pupils which they can use or not use at their discretion. It is merely an enabling Clause.
For the authorities who wish to use this power, the licensing provisions of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, are considerably simplified. The authorities have only to get the written consent of the licensing authority for public service vehicles, and


in the area within which the London Transport Executive have special rights, that of the British Transport Commission. The Clause provides that the licensing authority shall not give their consent unless they are satisfied that there are no other transport facilities which meet the reasonable needs of the pupils concerned. The licensing authorities will, of course, have an opportunity to consult the operators of any public transport vehicles.
If a licensing authority wish to refuse their consent on these grounds, they will be expected to satisfy themselves that the existing facilities will, in practice, meet the needs of the pupils concerned in all respects. I will see that this is made clear if the Bill is passed and this Clause is included, because I will send out a circular making these facts absolutely clear.
The last point which I want to draw to the attention of hon. Members is that, as they will see in the Clause, the fare to be charged has to be such amount as the local education authority consider reasonable. I think that from this short explanation it will be seen that the Clause gives a permissive power to the local education authority, who can use the power or not at their discretion; and that it is left to that authority to decide what fare, if any, they shall charge.

Mr. Ede: As the right hon. Lady said, we had a discussion in Committee on an Amendment which had been put down by the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Ashton), and I think that the hon. Member for Ealing, South (Mr. Maude) was also associated with it in the short discussion which we had. I gave my general support to the idea and I shall not this evening venture into the more intricate parts of the new Clause which deal with the arrangements with the various transport authorities who may be concerned. I know that it represents the result of considerable negotiation, and I can only hope that it complies with all the technical requirements of that somewhat complicated section of our law.
I welcome the idea behind this Lords Amendment. Representations have been made by certain right hon. and hon. Friends of mine sitting on this side of the House as to the need for this. It seems to me to be quite a commonsense arrangement, but I am concerned that it should

not relieve a local education authority of any duty that now rests upon it, and I wonder whether the words that occur in the first few lines of subsection (1) of the proposed new Clause,
no arrangements are made by the authority,
mean the same as if they were, "no duty rests on the authority to make arrangements."
I can see an ingenious authority—and I have been amazed at the ingenuity displayed by some authorities in trying to avoid their duties under the Act—providing for one pupil a free ride and charging others whom it is their duty to convey. They would still be not making the arrangements for those pupils for whom, in my view, they have a duty to provide.
As I understand the position it is this. It is an answer to a school attendance order if a parent says, "My child, being under eight, lives more than two miles from the school," or "My child, being over eight, lives more than three miles from the school." If the child is to be educated it is then regarded, under Section 55 (1), as I understand it, as the duty of the local education authority to provide transport for such a child. There are certain other cases where a child cannot get to a school of its own denomination within the limits of distance which I have just described, and where a local education authority has, in some cases, I know, been called on by the Minister for the time being to provide the necessary transport facilities. The cases I know occurred under the present Minister's predecessor.
I am really surprised that more Nonconformist parents in single school areas have not exercised their rights under Section 68 of the Act in this particular matter. It is not to be thought that this is a privilege that attaches merely to parents of the Roman Catholic or Church of England persuasion. It is in certain circumstances available to children of Nonconformist parents.

Sir Sidney Marshall: There are only a few.

Mr. Ede: I do not want to get into an argument with the hon. Gentleman about how many Church of England parents send their children to Church of England schools and how many Nonconformist


parents do so, because, after all, Nonconformity covers a very wide range of religious opinion and lack of opinion.

Sir S. Marshall: They have so few schools.

Mr. Ede: I know the difficulties that exist in certain cases on this point, and I want to be assured by the right hon. Lady that the words she has included will not enable a local education authority to apply a means test to pupils whom they are under a duty, if the law is as I have explained it, to convey free; because I quite see certain local education authorities—no names, no pack drill—who might seize on this, and we might get back to the days when there was differentiation of that kind.
For instance, when I first attended an elementary school it was before the days of the Act abolishing school fees—before free education. The fees we paid were graduated, according to what was believed to be the income of the parent, up to 9d. For some reason which showed a very poor lack of understanding of comparative incomes, I was assessed at 9d., and my father, after discovering that I was to be taught by a boy some few years older than myself who was the son of a tradesman who lived not far away said, "Ninepence for him, oh no." That dispute was not resolved until the free education Act had been passed.
I hope that the right hon. Lady, in her circular, will make it quite clear that, where a child lives outside the distance, and the local authority requires that child's attendance at school, he or she does not come within the arrangement whereby they can charge a fee.

Miss Horsbrugh: I give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance now. I was very careful to state, in what I said, that it neither removes nor adds anything to their duty. The duty of the local education authority remains, and in these particular words "no arrangements are made." It is the duty of the local authority to make arrangements to convey children who live more than two or three miles from the school. This takes away no statutory duty that exists now, and it also applies to the arrangements that are being carried out now in the denominational schools. Nothing of that is taken away whatever, and I shall see

that that is absolutely clear in the circular.

Mr. Ede: I am much obliged to the right hon. Lady for making that so emphatically clear, and I can only hope that the local education authorities will pay attention to the circular and see that nothing contrary to it goes on.
Apart from that, this seems to me to be a very sensible arrangement, indeed. Here is a bus proceeding along the road. It overtakes at some point within the two or three-mile limit, as the case may be, certain children who have to walk some distance within these limits to school. If it picks them up and a reasonable fare is charged it is probably better for the children, certainly in wet weather, than their having to trudge that distance. I hope that the right hon. Lady will see that the fares to be charged are reasonable, having regard to the standard of fares charged in the district.
This entails no additional expense on the local education authority, as I understand it. The bus or other vehicle is running and the charge is generally not on the number of passengers it conveys but is a lump sum for the type of vehicle that is provided. I think this is a reasonable way of dealing with the difficulty that occurs to some parents, especially where there are roads where there are no footpaths at the side, it is highly to be desired that as few children as possible in these days should be on those roads. If this vehicle picks them up and conveys them I think that is all to the good in every way.
I thank the right hon. Lady for including the new Clause, and I take it that what she has said in regard to the ordinary pupil also covers the case of the pupil, who has some physical disability, whom the local authority is under a duty to convey even if the distance is less than the two miles—that he cannot be charged even if he lives within the prescribed distance. If that is so, I think that this is a welcome addition to the education law of the country, and I certainly hope that local education authorities who have an opportunity to use it will do so to the full.

9.15 p.m.

Major Sir Frank Markham: I wish to give a very warm welcome to the Clause. It is something which has been needed in our educational


legislation for some time. I take perhaps a little vicarious pride in the fact that some of the inspiration behind this Clause came from Buckinghamshire, where we have, in practice, been carrying out schemes of this kind, wondering whether they would be approved. I am very glad to see now that we are absolved by this Clause which, I hope, will pass the House this evening.
I should like to make two short points on the Bill as it now stands. The first relates to fares, to which the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has referred. Instead of leaving fares to the discretion of the education authority, would it not be better to say that the fare charged for the schoolchildren should be the normal fare for children for that particular mileage in that neighbourhood, so that the education authorities know exactly what the fare should be and it should not be left to the discretion of the education committee?
I come now to my second point. The school bus has now become quite a feature of the rural areas. Very often it is the only bus that connects villages with market towns on several days of the week. Very often, even under this new scheme, all the seats in these buses will not be taken up. Therefore, I suggest that my right hon. Friend might go just that little step further.
When the seats are not all required by pupils under the Education Act or by pupils attending denominational or other schools, will my right hon. Friend seek ways and means of allowing the general public to use these seats as fare paying passengers, and so improve the amenities in villages such as those in North Buckinghamshire?

Mr. Leslie Hale: I am sure that all those who heard the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) will think that his parents got a very good ninepenny worth.

Mr. Ede: They did not pay it.

Mr. Hale: Then they got even better value for money than I had anticipated.
I join in tendering to the Minister from what, perhaps, appears to be a somewhat unexpected source, a humble tribute on this matter. I hope that the

right hon. Lady will take it as an earnest of possible encomiums to come. I share, however, the fears of my right hon. Friend on the wording of the Clause. I entirely agree that it does not necessarily cover any possible loophole; but, of course, we accept, and with gratitude, the clear and unequivocal undertaking that the right hon. Lady has given, and we appreciate that, whether the Bill covers it or not, the matter can be dealt with administratively.
I have no objection to any part of the Clause except the last part in the middle, about which I want to make a few observations. Perhaps the House will look for a moment at the two paragraphs which commence, "Provided that—" Anyone who knows anything about the traffic law will know that both paragraphs are wholly unnecessary unless it is wished to make special provision for the protection of some limited private enterprise. They have no relevance, of course, to this proposal at all.
When I recall what we did upstairs in Committee, I am astonished to find that four or five other people made the suggestion and, apparently, I did not, because I rather thought that I was the one who did it. I am probably wrong, however, in my recollection, because I have spent a lot of time in mentally thinking of speeches which I would have made but which I am never called upon to make. On reading the report of the proceedings in Committee, I recall that I had those things in mind, and to that extent I am, perhaps, entitled to claim the credit for having it in mind at the time, even if I did not make the speech.
The implication is quite serious. We made a perfectly simple proposal—nothing could be more simple. The bus may be running along the road with children in it, coming from two or three miles away and going direct to the schools. Other children may be walking, rather unhappily sometimes, in snow or sludge, along the same road, and the children in the bus are apt to cock a contemptuous snook at them as they pass, which adds to the misery of those who are walking. We say that they should be allowed to come in. If it is necessary, let them pay. Why not do that? All that the right hon. Lady agreed to and we were grateful; on Report stage she made an effort to do it. Then, at some stage—whether it was


a high civil servant or a Parliamentary draftsman we do not know—said that there might be a bus run by private enterprise which might do the journey.
Let us look at what the proposal means. It means that there might be going along that road, through two or three villages in Buckinghamshire, a stage carriage bus which may not have seats available, but it might be possible to prove that, on the whole, there is usually a seat at that time. It is not going to the school, but is going near the school. There arises the question whether the nearness to the school is suitable to a lad of 14, or a lad of five. All sorts of complications and questions of whether there are reasonable transport facilities available or not will come up for consideration.
Then the whole thing starts. A department in the town hall is opened and someone is appointed to deal with the problem. There must be someone to deal with it and no doubt he will get a title before long. [Laughter.] I do not mean in the Honours List, but a formal designation. He will be "Schoolchildren's Transport Registrar of Voluntary Fee Payers," or something like that. He will start with a ledger, an inkpot, and a few pens with a slight extension of office and hopes that things will develop.
Then there has to be a form for parents to fill in making application for leave to be entered on the fee payers' panel and stating the circumstances which justify that. They may be the distance from the school, disability, or even a mental inhibition to walking which might require psychiatric investigation. Then we start off with form "1/2/3/4/5/6/7/Z/3 Local Transport, School, Education." The form starts with, "Name in full, surname in capital letters," "Sex f. or m.," and so on through the whole gamut of the information that the Civil Service require.
That would not be satisfactory. One knows perfectly well what happens because we have nearly all been on local government bodies. Three months later the finance committee get a little memorandum to say that the officer in charge of a section of education has now taken on the additional job of registrar of voluntary fee payers and they recommend an addition to his salary of about £50 a year to cover the cost. Then we have started it in nearly every town hall in England. That is not the end, because we have to consider the licensing authority.
The right hon. Lady was rather coy about this, but the licensing authority, under the Road Traffic Act, is a quasi-judicial authority and have to act judicially. If they give a decision they have to hear representations from the owner of the bus concerned. Surely they cannot act in a quasi-judicial manner and not hear the people declared to have an interest. The owner of the bus is declared to have an interest. The normal procedure is to publish the whole thing in notes and proceedings, and so on.
Then there may be an adjournment because no one will know at first how many pupils are to use this service. An experimental period may be wanted in order to find out how many places there are on the bus and how many pupils can go on it. There has to be a form for the licensing authority and the registrar will have to nominate his form of application and transfer it to a form for the licensing authority, who will instruct someone to find out how many are travelling on the routes concerned. In Buckinghamshire, 70 or 80 routes are concerned—

Sir F. Markham: There are more.

Mr. Hale: That is an example of my modesty.
For every single one someone has to get out a map and work out with micrometers the distance to the school—or not to the school because the bus would not go to the school, but nearly—and the distance the pupil has to walk from the house to get to the bus. The bus may not start from that spot nor end at the spot required and the licensing authority has to say whether it goes near enough, whether it is worth while the children using it or using ordinary transport, even if they used it before. So we have another department going.
I do not know, I only venture to guess whether the bus proprietor will be entitled to be represented by counsel or a solicitor or will be allowed to submit his own form of representation as to what he will charge, what it is likely to cost the local authority for transport and how it will affect his finances and his living. And all this to make sure that a couple of infantile buttocks sit on a seat on which they were entitled to travel in the first place in a bus which is already there. This is bureaucracy gone mad. This is


from the apostles of private enterprise dealing with private enterprise.
I expressed my sense of gratitude for the Clause. I said that my gratitude was modest and I have qualified it to some extent in the observations I have felt called on to make. But I would say that the matter is not without its good side and I ought to pay attention to that. In a few years the "National Association of Registrars for Fee Paying Transport for School Pupils" will call the attention of Her Majesty's advisers to the fact that they have men who are an asset to the service and who may well be rewarded.
Through the usual channels, and following appropriate advice, some recognition will ultimately be awarded to them; it may be a K.B.E. or an M.B.E. The Road Haulage Association and the Transport Association will continue their normal contribution to the Tory funds or may possibly increase them, and this honourable House will be able to make the proud boast that government of the people, by the trade associations, for the trade associations, shall not perish from the earth.

Mr. Hubert Ashton: It is a matter of great gratification to me to see the accord of my right hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). We have listened to a most interesting speech from the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale). I do not know what is his experience of local government, but if it fell to his lot to administer this Clause, which is intended to help local authorities, I suggest that he might receive certain honours and titles which would surprise even him.
I wish to thank my right hon. Friend for the trouble she has taken over this Clause, the object of which is to help people to get their children to school. I believe that local authorities will interpret it sensibly and correctly. My small Clause has apparently not only travelled hopefully, but has arrived.

Question put, and agreed to.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUSTRIAL INJURIES) (No. 2) BILL

Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Clause 3.—(AMENDMENTS DEALING PRIMARILY WITH BENEFIT.)

9.28 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: I have selected as a new point the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay), in page 5, line 11. This morning the hon. Member submitted to me a re-draft of his Amendment as a manuscript Amendment in place of the one on the Order Paper. It is not usual to accept manuscript Amendments on Report, but having studied them both, I have come to the conclusion they both cover the same point and so I will ask the hon. Member to move his Amendment in the manuscript form in which he submitted it to me.

Mr. John McKay: I beg to move, in page 5, line 11, at the end, to insert:
(4) Section nineteen of the principal Act (which deals with death benefits for widows') shall be amended in subsection (3) by the substitution in paragraph (b) of the words
was over the age of forty at the end of a period for which she was entitled to such an allowance
for the words,
has attained the age of fifty during a period for which she was entitled to such an allowance.
For the information of hon. Members I will now read the paragraph as it will read if the Amendment is accepted. The provision will then read:
… where the widow was over the age of fifty at the deceased's death or over the age of forty at the end of a period for which she was entitled to such an allowance …
If a woman loses her husband and then brings up the children until they cease to be dependent, by which time she has reached the age of 40, or up to the age of 49, her allowance is reduced from 37s. to 20s. The Amendment would mean that, regardless of when the children cease to be dependent, if the widow is 40 years old or more she will continue to draw the 37s. instead of suffering the reduction.
I have been pressing this matter for some time to try to help widows in these circumstances. An examination of our social security Regulations shows that the industrial widow, if I may call her that, is worse treated when she has brought up a family than almost any other recipient of benefit. The position is that under National Insurance a widow who reaches the age of 40 when her children cease to be dependent continues to draw the allowance of 37s., but the industrial widow whose children cease to be dependent at the same time loses her 37s. and draws only 20s. The widow of someone in the Forces, who might not have had any children, draws 42s. at the age of 40.

This Amendment would place the industrial widow in the same position as the widow who draws benefit under the National Insurance Act. This would do no more than justice to the widows of men who have died in industry. I ask the Minister seriously to consider this question. Within our ordinary industrial occupations there are nearly 2,000 fatal casualties every year. Under present Regulations this position has created a good deal of friction and anxiety, and sometimes despondency. We are trying to remedy that as far as we can. I hope that the Amendment will receive support.

The position is that, for generations, we have always recognised that the case of a fatal accident is different from the case in which a man dies as the result of gradual though natural illness. It has been recognised that there is something different, because the man himself, no matter in what industry he was working—and he may even have been in the Army—was doing some practical work on behalf of the country, and, where death results from a sudden accident, we have recognised those conditions as a special case in which some recompense should be given to the widow.

It may be said that we want the widow to do a day's work, even if she is receiving a pension. There is nothing in my Amendment which will create such economic conditions as will encourage these widows to cease working. Under National Insurance, they are getting 32s. 6d. a week, and, under this Amendment, they will get 37s. Many of these women occupy houses in which much of the furniture may not be paid for, but,

even if it is, when the husband is fatally injured the widow will naturally expect to continue in occupation of the house, and there is then a liability for rent.

Is anyone going to argue that an amount of either 37s. or 32s. 6d. will be a discouragement to such women going into the labour market and doing a day's work? I know there will be exceptions in which widows will take advantage and try to live on the money they receive as pension, but, if they attempt to do that, their economic situation will be extremely difficult, because they will not have sufficient money with which to keep themselves, and, therefore, any argument of that kind need have no weight attached to it.

When a man is injured in any industry, he receives a disability pension, may be one of 20s. or even 30s. But he may be able to do a certain amount of work. Here, we are only asking for the application, in the case of the widows of men who died in industry, the same principle as has been admitted for years in private enterprise—the principle that, in these circumstances, the widow has an outstanding claim to some special recompense. I therefore hope that this Amendment will be carried so that some improvement may be offered to these widows.

Dr. H. Morgan: I beg to second the Amendment.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. Osbert Peake): The manuscript Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay) embodies exactly the idea which was clear from the Amendment which he had originally tabled, but which, for highly technical reasons, did not have the precise effect desired by the hon. Gentleman.
Let me say at once that the Amendment in its manuscript form is acceptable to the Government, and that I was glad to be able to place at the service of the hon. Gentleman the skill of the Parliamentary draftsmen to ensure that his Amendment was in proper form. The hon. Gentleman has pursued the subject of the National Insurance widow and also of the Industrial Injuries widow with an earnestness, an assiduity and a tenacity characteristic of a North Countryman whose forebears came from


over the Border. Indeed, his efforts remind me of the story of Robert Bruce and the spider.
The hon. Gentleman has tabled Parliamentary Questions on this subject, and he spoke upon it on the Second Reading of this Bill. He even put down Amend- ments in the Standing Committee, of which he was not a Member, and which the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) had to move for him; and, last but not least, he has forgone his supper this evening and stayed here since half-past seven, through a debate on Scottish affairs and a further debate on education, in order to move his Amendment. His efforts seem to me to be entirely praiseworthy—
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
The hon. Gentleman's ingenuity has discovered a curious discrepancy between the provisions of the National Insurance Act and those of the Industrial Injuries Act in the treatment of the widow at the time when she ceases to be entitled to the widowed mother's allowance. His Amendment brings the two Acts into line and ensures that the widow under the Industrial Injuries Act gets the benefit of the higher rate of widow's pension if she is over 40 at the date when she ceases to be entitled to the widowed mother's allowance.
We do not need on this happy occasion to go into the reasons why this flaw in the Industrial Injuries Act, 1946, existed, but I am very happy to be able to accept the Amendment. I would only add that it will be incorporated in the principal Act upon the appointed day. There will, of course, be quite a number of widows between the ages of 40 and 50 who are now in receipt of the 20s. pension and who will qualify for the higher rate proposed in the Amendment.
I can pick up these cases for the future, and I think I can also pick them up for the past, where they qualify but are at present in receipt only of the 20s. benefit. Let me make it clear that they will not get a back payment for past years of the difference between the two rates, but that, as from the appointed day, there will be, I think, no difficulty in picking these cases up and giving them the higher rate of pension straight away.

Mr. McKay: May I thank the Minister for all his help in these cases? I am sure I can also thank him sincerely on behalf of these women.

Amendment agreed to.

9.46 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. R. H. Turton): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
The Bill has been well received on all sides of the House, perhaps rather naturally, because it has the unnatural origin of having been fathered by the right hon. Lady the Member for Fulham, West (Dr. Summerskill) and mothered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North (Mr. Peake). Nobody has made any complaint about anything in the Bill, although there have been suggestions about what might have been but are not in it.
The House agrees, I think, that this is a useful and necessary piece of repair to the provisions of the Industrial Injuries Act. It was to be expected that so novel a scheme of compensation as that introduced under the Act of 1946, would, after the passing of some five years since it came into operation, need running repairs. The fact that we have had to make these small running repairs does not reflect at all upon the Industrial Injuries Scheme as a whole.
The main provision of the Bill is the relaxation effected by Clause 3 (1) in the conditions for disablement benefit. This will enable some 8,000 claimants a year to qualify for disablement benefit and perhaps 2,000 of them to qualify for special hardship allowance. There are other provisions which, though technical in character, will benefit many claimants and will enable the scheme to work more smoothly.
The Bill has received a very speedy passage through the House, and I thank hon. and right hon. Members on both sides for the contributions they have made to that speed. The Government hope that it will pass through the other place and receive the Royal Assent before the Recess. We are concerned to bring it into operation as soon as possible. Some little time will be needed to bring in the essential regulations about transitional problems, and so on, and to complete the


administrative preparations for these technical changes but, if the Royal Assent is received before the Recess, it is hoped to have the appointed day towards the end of August.
The main changes will then come into operation automatically. These include the relaxation of the conditions for disablement benefit; the changes in the definition of the injury benefit period, which will enable disablement benefit to follow straight on where injury benefit leaves off in cases where at present there is a gap between the two benefits; the provision of a modified hospital treatment allowance for a man who gets an assessment below 20 per cent. and who has been awarded a disablement gratuity; and the provision proposed by the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay), and now embodied in Clause 3.
Some of the other changes depend upon regulations on which the Advisory Council will have to be consulted. Priority will be given to those regulations which directly affect benefits, including those about night workers and those giving dependency benefit with the unemployability supplement to men on workmen's compensation. This will be referred to the Advisory Council immediately after the Royal Assent, and, if all goes well, should be in operation by the middle of September.
I said during the Second Reading debate that people who have had claims for disablement benefit rejected before the appointed day under the old conditions will be able to claim again from the appointed day, under the new conditions in Clause 3 (1), if there is still some residual disablement at that time. Where a claim has been rejected not long before the appointed day and it is known that there will be some residual disablement, the Ministry will take steps to review the case automatically.
The others will have to come forward and make a claim, but every effort will be made to let people know of their rights. A leaflet will be made available in every local office as soon as possible after the Royal Assent has been given to the Bill. Press publicity will lay stress on these transitional cases and it is hoped that the trade unions will do all they can to make the news known.
The longer I remain at the Ministry of National Insurance the greater is the

gratification I feel that although we may be bitterly divided on many important questions of policy there is in this House a united desire to make the National Insurance Scheme as perfect as possible. This Bill is a very good illustration of that fact. It is very appropriate that in Her Majesty's Coronation Session this Parliament should pass, first, a Bill to give improved maternity benefits, and, secondly, this Measure to improve the Industrial Injuries Scheme.

9.52 p.m.

Dr. Batnett Stross: It is certainly true that, although we had some words on the Committee stage, everybody on this side of the House thinks that the contents of this Bill are good. I am not sure whether the Minister did not introduce the Bill on Second Reading by saying that it was a good little Bill. But however little it be, and even though it be too little, we entirely agree with him about its merits so far as it goes.
I am particularly happy to have heard the Parliamentary Secretary make his important statement about men who have been recently rejected because they had only a small loss of faculty, and who can now come forward and have their cases reopened. We who deal with these cases personally know how real the grievance is when a man falls by a few days or a few weeks on the wrong side of what he feels is his right to justice. It is good to hear that we shall be able to go back to our constituencies, as I am sure that we shall do, and tell the trade unions associated with these men, "Pick up all these cases and let us get their rights for them, because this new Act of Parliament enable us to do that."
On its first page this Bill is described as a Bill to:
Make further provision with respect to the system of insurance established by the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946 …
What discussions we have had on the Bill have been about the words "system of insurance." I am speaking tonight because I was most unfortunate in that I missed the second morning of the Standing Committee upstairs. I was called away to Staffordshire to speak in the courts on behalf of a man who was injured in industry. Unfortunately, or perhaps I should say fortunately since the issue was successful, I had to go there.
In my absence the Minister was good enough to refer to my views on the principle of this Bill. As I only discussed the principle I must have done badly for the Minister misunderstood me. I am sure that I am not only speaking for myself but for everyone on this side of the House, and probably for the whole House, when I say that we do not want the principle of the 1946 Act altered and that we do not want to go back to the principles of the old Workmen's Compensation Act.
The reason that we are happy about the Act is that in the old days we were so conscious of the brooding and ill-will, the loss of production and all the other evils of which I am sure the Minister is conscious. The Minister himself referred to what he felt might be considered wrong with the term "Loss of faculty." I will not go into the details of that point; it would be wrong to do so at this stage, but I would point out that his interpretation of what I meant was mistaken. I think that we can trust the present arrangement so long as we have a better and wider form of interpretation.
Any faults or difficulties in the Act or in the present Bill can be dealt with by thoughtful methods, by trial and error, and I am sure that already we are far better off than we were before the principal Act was introduced. It is true that soon, perhaps within a year's time, we shall have a further opportunity to discuss similar matters on this subject, and perhaps there will be a better interpretation of some of the principles if we act together with good will and understanding.
Until that time comes it is only right and proper to say that we are grateful to the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for most of what they said in Committee upstairs. They gave certain promises, one of which was to consider the period of time, which is now three months, after which a man Joses his chance of special hardship allowance should he succeed in continuing his former work during that time. As a medical man, I can assure the Minister that if he doubles the three months to six months, there will be practically no one falling on the wrong side of the line. I hope he will remember that some men, if they have dependants whom they must

keep, can work for two or three months in pain and suffering, but are not likely to avoid a breakdown if they are given six months' grace.

9.57 p.m.

Mr. Tom Brown: I wish to compliment the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary on the speed with which this Bill has gone through its various stages. The Minister and I have different opinions about the question of workmen's compensation, opinions born from our experience in dealing with such cases, but if the speed with which this Bill has gone through its various stages is reflected in the speed with which it is administered we shall have no complaint. The Second Reading took place on 25th June; we had the two meetings of the Committee on 2nd and 7th July, and now on 13th July we are having the Third Reading.
I am reminded of the war-time Measures with which we used to deal. They went through with great rapidity. I think this is the first time in history—certainly within my recollection—when we have put on the Statute Book a Measure of this description with such speed. Many of us remember the long wrangles of the past on the subject of workmen's compensation, many of them bitter and obnoxious. Within the last few years there has been a mellowing in the approach to this subject.
I want to refer to my Second Reading speech, in connection with the necessity for speed in this matter. I do not want to make a Second Reading speech on Third Reading, because I should be out of order, but this is what I said:
… I assure him "—
the Minister—
that one of the things required to make this Bill work successfully is speed. The moment it gets upon the Statute Book it is absolutely essential that the machine which is called upon to operate the Bill and the regulations under the Bill shall move as quickly as possible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th June, 1953; Vol. 516, c. 2179.]
I hope that the Minister and his Department will take note of what I say, not because I say it, but because it is of paramount importance. We are now finding, under another Measure that was passed by his Department—the Pneumoconiosis and Byssinosis Bill—that delays are causing great anxiety in the coalfield,


and it is particularly the slow administration of that scheme which is affecting the people concerned.
Speed in this matter is essential, and I was very sorry to hear the Parliamentary Secretary say that the regulations would not be ready before September. Surely it was possible to get them ready before September. It is only 13th July now, and it ought not to take eight weeks to put the regulations into operation. I am convinced that there is something radically wrong with the operation of some of the regulations. I have not been able to find out what it is, though I am not blaming the Minister or the personnel of his Department, in London.
It may be that if I pursued the matter, like my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay)—who has been successful with his Amendment—I should find the solution, but I can assure the Minister and his Department that I shall leave no stone unturned in my efforts to find out what is causing the machine to operate so slowly.
I want to say a word on the question of the appointment of medical boards, which, I think, should be reconstituted. We are finding, particularly in the mining areas, that many of the medical men and women who sit upon these boards have no knowledge of working conditions. I am not blaming them, because they have not had the experience, but it is essential that these boards should consist of men, and perhaps women, who know something of the industrial conditions under which these men and women have sustained their accidents. If the Minister will give his attention to that matter he will improve the administrative machine which will operate this Measure.

On the question of the period of three months in connection with the hardship allowance, I think the Minister will agree that it is too short a period. He ought to extend it. I remember the arguments which were once advanced by the Home Office in regard to silicosis—I do not believe the right hon. Gentleman was in office then—when we were told that one year was enough. We found by experience that that was inadequate. It was extended to five years, and we found that that was wrong, and the period has now been cut out altogether. I believe that the Minister should cut out the period in this case. Why three months, six months, nine months or 12 months? If

a man feels he is able to go back to his work at the end of three months or six months and, when he goes back, fails to do it because of the results of his accident, why should he be debarred from receiving his hardship allowance?

Perhaps I may draw from my own experience. As I have said many times before in the House, I am an ex-miner, and my body bears the wounds of accidents in the pits. My right leg was injured about 40 years ago and I am troubled with the injury even today. Suppose I had gone back to mining at the end of three months or six months and then had had to give up. I should have been debarred from receiving my hardship allowance.

In my opinion, the periods are all too short. They ought not to exist at all. I plead with the Minister, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, West (Dr. Summerskill) and others of my hon. Friends have done; and we do not make the plea because we are asking for something for nothing. We are asking that these men who decide to go back to work at their pre-injury jobs and then fail at the end of three months shall not be debarred from receiving their hardship allowance.

If the Minister will give consideration to the points which I have hurriedly raised he will receive not only our congratulations but the gratitude of those who, unfortunately, sustain accidents in the pits.

10.7 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Elwyn Jones: I join my hon. Friends in congratulating the Government on this useful little Bill and on accepting the Amendment. I also join them in commending the Government on the speed with which they propose to implement the provisions of the Bill. If my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) will permit me to say so, I think six weeks for the preparation of the appropriate regulations to incorporate matters which reek with technicalities does not seem to me at any rate, to be an excessive period of time.

Mr. T. Brown: It is too long.

Mr. Jones: I share my hon. Friend's impatience on behalf of those who will benefit from the scheme, and it is reassuring to be told that some provision


will be made in the regulations for the interim period.
If the rules of order permitted me to do so, I would go on to say that I hoped the same speed would be applied by the Government in dealing with the numerous outstanding problems of great importance which were referred to in the course of the debate upon this Bill and, in particular, the inquiry into the benefits for disability caused by industrial processes. I had upon the Order Paper today a Question to the Minister which had the misfortune to be No. 87 in the list. I asked him
whether the Industrial Diseases Sub-Committee (Pneumoconiosis) has yet reported on the question referred to it early in 1951 of the method of prescribing pneumoconiosis for the purposes of insurance under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946.
The reply which I received from the Minister was,
I have just received a very full report from the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council on the cover to be provided for pneumoconiosis. I am studying this and hope to be able to announce what action I propose to take on its recommendations shortly.
One appreciates that these committees, in which professional men and others busy in their practice give voluntarily of their services, cannot move as fast as one would wish. All I ask is that the Government will press on this matter by exhortation and encouragement to the appropriate committees which they have appointed so that the outstanding matters may be fully covered in early legislation which we look to the minister to introduce.

10.10 p.m.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: The Parliamentary Secretary said that this Bill was characterised by its unnatural parentage. I must confess that it will be associated in my mind with the Minister's death-bed repentance. It will be recalled that in Committee my hon. Friend the Member for West-houghton (Mr. J. T. Price) moved an Amendment very similar to the one moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay) tonight. The Minister shakes his head, but he knows that the principle was very much the same. My hon. Friend could make no impact upon the Minister at all.
The right hon. Gentleman rejected our appeal, and, indeed, I was so incensed that at the end I felt it necessary to castigate the Minister. Then my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton rose up and said he wanted to apply balm to the Minister's wounds.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: My right hon. Friend is confusing me with our hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price), or his constituency.

Dr. Summerskill: I beg my hon. Friend's pardon. He knows that my admiration and respect for him are such that the last thing I would wish to do would be to forget his constituency.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said he would apply balm to the Minister's wounds. When the Minister came to the Dispatch Box tonight and for the first time manifested a generous attitude I wondered whether it was my castigation or my hon. Friend's balm that had such a successful outcome. Whatever it was, we congratulate him. A death-bed repentance is always very acceptable.
I join with my hon. Friends in saying that the Bill is a little late. Its provisions have been discussed for three years. However, I agree that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary have expedited the business, and I join with my hon. Friends in congratulating them.
In the debates we have tried to persuade the Minister to give disabled workers a greater measure of security, and it is a matter of great regret that the Minister, in an important subject of this kind, has not thought fit to give way on any one of those points although in the Committee it was quite clear that he was sympathetic. Indeed, on the question of hardship allowances he was very receptive to our appeals, yet still he was adamant. I hope that he will in the next few weeks reconsider this matter.
I should say that the only jarring note in the debates on this Bill has been the excuse, frequently repeated by the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for not taking action, that the whole scheme was designed by their Labour predecessors and that any miscalculation was their fault. We are a little tired of this excuse. It is given, I know, in letters to hon.


Members; it is given in answers to Questions. The reason why the Minister will not take action is that I or my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) were originally responsible, and that if we did not think fit to make any amendment the Minister himself does not consider it right and proper to make any change.
If every Government and Minister adopted this attitude no legislation would ever be amended. Furthermore, if the authors of the industrial injuries and National Insurance Schemes had considered themselves infallible it would not have been necessary to make statutory provision for a quinquennial review. We can only hope that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary will change their attitude in the weeks and months to come—however long it may be before we on this side once more sit on those benches and have the courage to take the initiative in these matters.
Meanwhile, it is the desire of us all, of course, to see the provisions of this Bill no longer delayed but put into operation as soon as possible. I welcome the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary that the appointed day will be at the end of next month. My hon. Friends behind me, and, indeed, the whole House, identify themselves with what the Parliamentary Secretary said in his opening remarks. All of us here are only too anxious, I am sure, to try to the best of our ability to improve this Measure. We on this side of the House are particularly anxious to do so and we would ask for a little more co-operation from the Minister in the future.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

RIVER POLLUTION

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Kaberry.]

10.16 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I wish tonight to call attention to the work of the river boards in connection with the prevention of river pollution. If I deal mainly with the extent of the pollution, I hope that the House will not think that I am criticising the work of the river boards; I am not. I believe that they are doing a magnificent job of work under very difficult conditions. I should like to pay a special tribute to the Mersey River Board, and particularly to its officers who are always most helpful and efficient and faced with a task comparable with any of the labours of Hercules. I want to give recent examples of river pollution as illustrations of the magnitude of the problem which the river boards have to face. For these examples I am mainly indebted to the Pure River Society, of which I have the honour to be president, and particularly to the hon. secretary, Mr. Anthony.
The first illustration relates to Kent and concerns the River Eden. The "Sevenoaks Chronicle." on 1st May, had this to say:
On the River Eden, near Hever, is a peaceful spot which during the fishing season should be an anglers' paradise, and where children have often bathed. But now there are no children playing near the river and hundreds of fishes are rising to the surface to die. … Thousands of fish are dying from disease and fungus. Residents of cottages along the river bank have to keep their doors and windows shut because of the foul stench from the water. … Although cattle and domestic animals did not appear to be so seriously affected by the pollution, farmers were in some places erecting barriers on the river bank to prevent their cattle drinking from the river.
The cause of that pollution was a tannery discharging into the river an effluent with which the local sewerage undertaking was not adequate to deal.
The second example comes from Lancashire, and the "Manchester Guardian" on 2nd July told us that in the case of the River Ribble, one of the most beautiful in the country, the


previous weekend thousands of fish had been killed as the result of river pollution.
Turning to Bristol, to a case in which I know the hon. Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Awbery) is particularly interested, on 30th June there was a report that the previous day about 5,500 dead fish had been found piled against the lock gates at Netham, Bristol. The cause of that was that the river upstream had got over-heated as the result of which the fish had been driven downstream and killed by the large amount of untreated sewage in the river.
At Hatherleigh, in Devonshire, a report appeared in the "Exeter Echo" of 29th June as follows:
The sewage effluent at Hatherleigh is at least 18 times more pollutive than the approved maximum, Okehampton Rural District Council was told yesterday. … The sanitary inspector stated that there was little or no treatment of the sewage, which flowed through open irrigation channels and thence to the river.
The last case has relation to the Thames, which has always had such a splendid record for the pureness of its water. Yet the "Daily Herald" on 1st July told us that the previous day the medical officer of health for Windsor, Dr. S. J. McClathchey, had referred to the Thames, saying:
It is a mucky mess and not very nice to bathe in.
The same day the medical officer of health for Maidenhead had warned that the public should not be allowed to bathe in the Thames. In almost every case where we investigate these instances of pollution, we find that they arise from the absence, inadequacy or obsolescence of sewerage or purification plant.
If we refer to the report of the Somerset River Board for last year, we are told on page 29 that of the 249 samples obtained from sewage works, 43 per cent. were unsatisfactory and that the figure in respect of trade effluents was 68 per cent. unsatisfactory. If we turn to the report of the Kent River Board for last year, at page 27 we find this description:
All qualities of sewage effluent are discharged in the Board's area, some being excellent, though others are more in keeping with the quality of untreated sewage. Discharges of effluents from the following trades are also made to watercourses under the Board's control, invariably without treatment:

Paper mills at which the whole range of activities of the paper-making industry is carried out; tanneries; breweries; canneries; sweet manufactory; engineering works; gas works; collieries; oil refineries; paint and varnish manufactories; flour mills; dairies; laundries; and gravel workings.
In the case of the Mersey River Board, I have consulted them and I am informed that during the past year 36 per cent. of the samples of sewage effluent that they have taken were unsatisfactory or bad. The figure for the trade effluents is 64 per cent. In the case of the Yorkshire Ouse River Board, we are told that the River Swale, which is a very beautiful river indeed, is being seriously polluted by the discharge of crude sewage from the Borough of Richmond and that a tributary of the River Codbeck is being polluted by the discharge of crude sewage from Thirsk and Sowerby.
In the case of the Northumberland and Tyneside River Board, we find this description:
There have been no significant changes during the year in regard to sewage effluents affecting the quality of the rivers and streams in the Board's area. The reason for this will perhaps be better appreciated when it is realised that the sewage of at least two-thirds of the total population in the area is discharged in an untreated condition into the tidal estuary of the River Tyne …
Their report goes on to say:
Where sewage is disposed of otherwise than by discharge into tidal waters, it does not always receive proper treatment. In many cases it is found that there are no sewage treatment works, or that the existing plant is in need of major improvement which cannot be met by expenditure out of local revenue alone. The local authorities concerned have in some cases prepared, or are preparing, schemes for the treatment of sewage in their respective districts but having regard to present restrictions on capital expenditure it seems probable that the execution of many of these projects will be delayed.
I have no doubt that some local authorities have been casual in this matter. Indeed, in two recent cases—the case of Lord Brocket against the Luton Corporation, and the Pride of Derby Angling Association against British Celanese, Limited, and others—there was some judicial censure of the attitude of the Corporations of Derby and Luton. But with exceptions of that kind, I believe that most local authorities generally want to help. We find, however, that in each case they come up against the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. It is not surprising to learn that Mr. Justice


Vaisey, in one of the cases to which I have referred, said that he would advise the mayor and corporation of Luton to come up and besiege the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
I am not denying that some work of this kind is being done, as the Minister told the House in reply to a Question that I put to him on 7th July. What is being done, however, is not enough, and until the Government change their policy and unless greater financial assistance is given to the smaller local authorities, we can hope for little improvement in the condition of our rivers.
In the case of trade effluents, two things are needed. One is that they must be discharged into existing sewerage systems, which at present are overloaded, or must be treated by special purification equipment. Here again we find the restrictions of the Government on capital expenditure mean that the Board of Trade are seldom in a position to give approval to schemes of this kind. There are, of course, some private manufacturers who resent interference and refuse to cooperate, but I think they are in the minority. At the same time those who wish to co-operate are confronted by many obstacles.
So far I think three special points of interest have emerged from the experience of the river boards. The first is the remarkable ignorance on the part of manufacturers of the nature of the effluent they discharge into rivers. When the Mersey River Board, for example, asked a firm of tar manufacturers, which discharges 1¼ million gallons of effluent into the river every day, what was the nature of the effluent, they were told that the firm had no analytical details about its composition. The same reply was received from a firm of bleachers, dyers and finishers which discharged 168,000 gallons a day into the river.
The second point relates to the washing of coal. As far back as 1898 a Royal Commission reported on the polluting effect of washing black coal and their Report said that the effluent should not contain more than 40 parts of suspended solids per million. But at the end of last year the relative figure from Brackley Colliery was 13,900 parts instead of 40 and from the Parsonage colliery of Leeds the figure was 32,300. I think it is fair

in that case to point out that some considerable improvement has taken place since then.
The third point refers to gas undertakings. Since 1847 it has been an offence to discharge into the rivers crude gas liquor from gas undertakings. Yet in the area of the Mersey River Board that discharge is still taking place. All hon. Members will agree that polluted rivers are destroying the amenities and the beauties of the countryside, killing fish and endangering livestock. They are a menace to health and are against the interest of manufacturers and water undertakings who rely on the good supply of clean water.
We are today making progress in this matter. But the rate of progress is held back partly because of indifference on the part of some local authorities, some manufacturers and some nationalised boards, but most of all I think by the policy of the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Board of Trade in respect of expenditure upon capital equipment. I hope that tonight the Minister will be able to tell us that he will take urgent action to acquaint local authorities, manufacturers and nationalised boards with their duties and responsibilities and will be able to announce an early date at which the present restrictions on expenditure of this kind will be removed by Her Majesty's Government.

10.29 p.m.

Mr. F. A. Burden: I was very interested to hear that this debate was to be raised tonight. I am particularly concerned with the Maidenhead area. If my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government went to a little place called Bourne End—a lovely spot—and saw a stream called the Wye, I am sure he would be fully acquainted with the dangers and filth of pollution. It is a lovely little stream running through a beautiful garden, but if one looks into it one sees at the side that every weed and grass that comes into contact with it looks as if it has been dipped in porridge. The bottom of the stream looks the same. Sometimes it is bright red and at others it looks as though a giant washtub has been tipped into it with the detergent suds piled up on the top. It is a disgusting sight.
I believe this is due partly to the fact that the whole sewerage of the Wooburn Valley is antiquated and incapable of dealing with the modern situation. I understand that a projected scheme is being considered, and I hope my hon. Friend will give very serious consideration to this scheme and see that it is implemented as soon as possible. I should like my hon. Friend one day to come down, particularly at the weekend, to see this stream, and then he would understand the force of the argument which has been put by the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood).

10.30 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Ernest Marples): I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) and all hon. Members that I am as well aware as any of them of the pollution in the streams of this country. It is my habit every Sunday to take a walk of not less than 12 or 14 miles, and I pass these streams, especially at Maidenhead. There is a particular walk that I do from Henley, which goes by a place called Bigg's Bottom, and on this journey I see these streams, and so I have first-hand knowledge of the difficulties about the pollution of our rivers. I can assure my hon. Friend that I have this problem very much at heart. I am not a fisherman, but I like fish which are extracted from streams which are not polluted.
The hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) hoped that the Minister would be able to tell him certain things. Frankly, I should have been better able to tell him something if he had had enough courtesy to inform me of the points he wished to raise in the debate.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: rose—

Mr. Marples: He was telephoned and asked what points he wished particularly to raise. At a second's notice, it is not easy to answer specific points about tidal waters which, in any case, are not under the jurisdiction of the river boards. He ought to know that if he really is taking his duties as president of the Royal Rivers Society as seriously as he would lead the House to believe. I mention that

because the hon. Member had the advantage of a great education and a political background. He should be more courteous when he raises a debate of this sort.

Mr. Greenwood: The Parliamentary Secretary is behaving in a most extraordinary way. If he can tell me how this message was sent, I shall be interested to hear about it. It has certainly not reached me. It may be through some fault on my part, but the other morning we were on Standing Committee together and the hon. Member has had many opportunities of asking me what I wished to raise if he desired to do so.

Mr. Marples: The hon. Gentleman simply cannot get away with it like that. It is normal and customary in this House, if an Adjournment debate is being raised on which specific points require to be answered, that the hon. Gentleman raising the subject informs the Minister concerned of the specific points. I believe I am right in saying that that applies all round. In any case, the hon. Gentleman's private secretary was telephoned and asked what points he had in mind, but there was no answer.

Mr. Greenwood: If that did, in fact, happen, I accept the hon. Gentleman's explanation and apologise to him for not having replied to him, but at the same time he could have approached me in the House at any time in the past few days. I have not put a case requiring an answer on a specific point, except the general point of principle about the Government's attitude to capital expenditure on schemes of this kind.

Mr. Marples: I am sorry, but as I have noted it the hon. Gentleman said "I hope the Minister will be able to tell us—" and then he catalogued certain things. If only those points had been given to me before, it might have been possible for me to give the hon. Gentleman a more satisfactory answer, from his point of view and from the point of view of everybody. That is all I say. If the hon. Gentleman does not want to give notice when he raises an Adjournment debate, then that is his fault.
I join the hon. Member in paying a tribute. He started by spending less than a minute in paying a gracious, full and generous tribute to the river boards, and then the rest of his time was spent in


saying where the river boards had fallen short in their duties. He catalogued many grievances.

Mr. Greenwood: I did not make one single criticism of any river board in what I had to say. My criticisms were entirely directed to the fact that they were being hindered in their work by the capital expenditure policy of the Government.

Mr. Marples: That may be. I am just informed, if the hon. Gentleman wants to know, that his private secretary rang my private secretary and my private secretary asked her to let me know of any particular points that he wished to raise. I should like to make that point clear anyhow.

Mr. Greenwood: rose—

Mr. Marples: I hope the hon. Gentleman will allow me to make some sort of speech.

Mr. Greenwood: If the hon. Gentleman says that then, as I have already said, I gladly accept it. I might perhaps add that when I asked the hon. Gentleman's Department for copies of the reports of the river boards I was only referred to the House of Commons Library.

Mr. Marples: If they are in the House of Commons Library, then the hon. Gentleman has got the reports. The hon. Gentleman catalogued grievances and quoted many rivers—the River Eden, the Ribble and so on. He stated the grievances but did not suggest how they could be remedied. This is the first time that river pollution has been debated in this House since we considered the Bill which is now the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act, 1951. I am glad that the matter has been raised. I wish that it had been done in a different manner. I say that because I have had some experience of the hon. Gentleman. It is not often that I have harsh words to say, but he has said them against me in the past on many issues, including National Parks—something which I remember deeply.
During the 12 months the task laid on the two Ministers has been almost completed. The river boards have been set up. I think that 32 are now firmly in the saddle. It would be appropriate for me to start by saying on behalf of my right

hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government a word of welcome for the river boards as the latest addition to our system of local government. The task of establishing the river boards was commenced after the passing of the River Boards Act in 1948. None of them have long histories.
I exclude from my remark the Thames and Lea Conservancies, which are not river boards although they exercise similar jurisdiction. Both of them have the powers of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act, 1951, but they both have their own local Act powers as well. Many of the river boards were able to take over a nucleus of an establishment from the old catchment boards and the fishery boards but only a very fortunate few have inherited any effective organisation for the prevention of river pollution. In other words, from the practical point of view they really started from scratch.
They started from scratch a few years ago but it is 200 years since the pollution started. We must always bear in mind that these are very young bodies dealing with a very old problem. When the River Boards Act was put on the Statute Book one of its principal objects was to bring into existence river authorities capable of dealing with the rivers as a whole. That was possibly the main purpose of the Act—preventing and reducing river pollution in our rivers as a whole. The powers at their disposal were strengthened by the River (Prevention of Pollution) Act of two years ago; but two years is really a short time where our rivers are concerned. The boards have had to build up their own organisations, they have had to recruit officers, they have had to acquaint themselves with the problems of their areas and make contacts with the local authorities.
I put it to the hon. Gentleman that in all fairness I do not think we are justified in expecting spectacular results, because technically it will not be possible to get them. There are two provisions of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act to which I should like to refer. One is Section 5 and the other is Section 7 of the Act. River boards are given the power to make bye-laws setting the standard for effluents. In all discussions on pollution we ought to try to be constructive and not purely destructive. Section 5 gives the power to make bye-laws setting the standard for effluents.


Perhaps I might put this in an unscientific way. The standards would define the maximum amount of the impurities which would be tolerated in discharges to sewage disposal works from industrial premises and the like.
This power to make bye-laws and to define what shall be meant by pollution in different areas or for different schemes is being taken very seriously by the river boards. From the annual reports to which the hon. Gentleman referred—copies of which can be found in the Library—the hon. Gentleman will find that the first essential, as in all matters of construction, is to make a survey of what are the actual facts of the situation. The river boards are making river surveys which really are the essential preliminary to the formulation of practical standards. We hope from the Ministry point of view to try to deal with the problem with the help of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries who give us that technical advice on matters which the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham has very much at heart.
We are trying to study the problem, and trying to define certain standards, and we hope to circulate these findings to the river boards. But the practical difficulties are very formidable, and it will be extremely hard to draft satisfactory bye-laws because of the many and complex technical problems involved in modern industrial processes, and the innumerable ingredients finding their ways into the final discharge of the waste matter.
The Department is trying, under Section 5 to compile, collate, and analyse the technical advice necessary for the river boards, and this is advice which will be buttressed by the advice which we receive from the industrial concerns themselves. That is Section 5.
Section 7 gives complementary powers to the river boards, and states that anyone wishing to make a new discharge, or increase an existing one, must get the consent of the board concerned before doing so. But, industry and local authorities cannot hold up new works while the river boards establish themselves. Industry and local authorities must go on with their normal functions; industrial processes, and local works,

such as sewerage schemes, cannot be stopped because the river boards have been established. The boards have been faced with awkward problems, but I think that they are doing a good job under difficult circumstances, and where time is pressing against them.
River pollution is no new problem; indeed, it is two centuries old, and as our cities and great urban areas have grown, many of our rivers, especially in the north, have deteriorated considerably. But nobody can apportion blame for this, and I am sure that no hon. Member of this House would wish to do so. Today, the problem is to reverse the trend, and anyone with any practical experience knows that it cannot be done quickly. It may take generations. To provide treatment capable of dealing with the huge quantities of waste material going into our rivers means, not only heavy capital expenditure, but a tremendous amount of research and experiment before some trade waste can be treated at all. Nobody can really say what type of treatment is necessary for all waste from modern scientific processes, and so, there must be not only the capital equipment but also scientific knowledge, which must be the basis before any plant is installed.
River boards have an important role to play, and among their work could be the pointing out to industry and local authorities of their shortcomings not, if I may use the word, in "snooty" letters but by co-operating with those using the rivers; by offering advice and help where they can on how sewage and waste can best be treated. It is the job of the boards to be constructive, and not merely to say to industry and the local authorities, "Thou shalt not," but to show how much they can co-operate by explaining how this, or that, can be done.
Frankly, the river boards have made an excellent start. Co-operation behind the scenes does not hit the headlines, but it is something which is vitally necessary if we are to solve the problem of the polluted rivers in this country. The "back-room boys," the technical staff, the people who have no publicity, are really the chaps who are going to give us rivers free from pollution, and not the boys in search of a lot of publicity on a particularly spectacular deterioration of a portion of a river.
I grant my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and the hon. Member opposite that many of our rivers are in an unsatisfactory state. The question is, how are they to be put right? It will not be done merely by pointing out where they are wrong, but by people being constructive and indicating in a technical and practical way how they may be put right in the shortest time. Co-operation between the boards and the local authori-

ties or firms producing the sewage or trade waste will not produce results without actual work.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Fourteen Minutes to Eleven o'clock.